Accession of Western Siberia to the Russian state. Accession and development of Siberia at the end of the XVI-XVII centuries

The fate of Yermak's army, like that of the entire Cossacks, turned out to be great and at the same time tragic. But the free Cossack and ataman Yermak Timofeevich with his squad gloriously served the Russian Land, made an invaluable contribution to strengthening the borders and strengthening the power of the great Russian state.

The annexation of Siberia, begun with the campaigns of Yermak, was continued after the death of the ataman. As early as 1586, forts began to grow on the territory conquered by the Cossack army, defending new settlements and subsequently turning into the first Russian Siberian cities.

Already in 1697-1699, a trip to Kamchatka took place, a little later the Kuril Islands were discovered, and in 1716 an expedition was organized to the shores of Kamchatka through the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.

New lands were conquered and mastered, Russia grew and grew stronger - the losses of Ataman Yermak were not in vain, his death was not in vain. The great cause of the daring Cossack army lived, continued and remained forever in the memory of the Russian people.

Ermak's campaign in 1581 and the beginning of the annexation of Siberia

The origin of Yermak is not exactly known, there are several versions. According to one legend, he was from the banks of the Chusovaya River. Thanks to the knowledge of local rivers, he walked along the Kama, Chusovaya and even crossed to Asia, along the Tagil River, until they were taken away to serve as Cossacks, in other words, a native of the Kachalinsky village on the Don. Recently, the version about the Pomeranian origin of Yermak has been heard more and more often, probably referring to the Boretsky volost, the center of which exists to this day - the village of Borok, Vinogradovsky district, Arkhangelsk region.

Probably, Ermak was at first the chieftain of one of the numerous Volga Cossack squads that protected the population on the Volga from arbitrariness and robbery by the Crimean and Astrakhan Tatars. This is evidenced by the petitions of the “old” Cossacks addressed to the tsar that have come down to us, namely: Yermak’s comrade-in-arms Gavrila Ilyin wrote that he “fielded” with Yermak in the Wild Field for 20 years, another veteran Gavrila Ivanov wrote that he served the tsar “in the field of twenty years with Ermak in the village "and in the villages of other chieftains.

By the beginning of 1580, the Stroganovs invited Yermak to serve, then he was at least 40 years old. Yermak participated in the Livonian War, commanded a Cossack hundred during the battle with the Lithuanians for Smolensk. A letter from the Lithuanian commandant Mogilev Stravinsky, sent at the end of June 1581 to King Stefan Batory, has been preserved, in which “Ermak Timofeevich is the Cossack chieftain” is mentioned.

In August 1584, Yermak and a handful of comrades fell into a Tatar ambush. At night, in the pouring rain, when the Cossacks were fast asleep after a long journey, the Tatars attacked them and killed everyone. Ermak, trying to escape, rushed into the Irtysh and drowned. The rest of his detachment returned to Russia.

Legend of Yermak's death

There is a legend that the body of Yermak was soon caught from the Irtysh by a Tatar fisherman "Yanysh, Begishev's grandson." Many noble murzas, as well as Kuchum himself, came to look at the body of the ataman. The Tatars shot the body with bows and feasted for several days, but, according to eyewitnesses, his body lay in the air for a month and did not even begin to decompose. Later, having divided his property, in particular, taking two chain mail donated by the Tsar of Moscow, he was buried in the village, which is now called Baishevo. They buried him in a place of honor, but behind the cemetery, since he was not a Muslim. The question of the authenticity of the burial is currently being considered. The shell with targets presented to Yermak by Tsar Ivan, which belonged to the voivode Pyotr Ivanovich Shuisky, who was killed in 1564 by Hetman Radziwill in the Battle of Chashniki, first came to the Kalmyk tayji Ablai, and in 1646 was recaptured by Russian Cossacks from the "thieves' Samoyeds" - the rebellious Selkups. In 1915, during excavations in the Siberian capital of Kashlyk, exactly the same plaques with double-headed eagles were found that were on Shuisky's shell, which Yermak himself could have dropped there.

Undoubtedly, our associations about the beginning of Russian Siberia are connected with the name of Ermak Timofeevich. Four centuries ago, his squad crossed the "Stone Belt" of the Urals and defeated the aggressive Siberian Khanate - one of the last fragments of the Golden Horde. An event of great historical importance took place: the last Mongol king, Kuchum, was beaten, and this laid the foundation of Asiatic Russia. Yermak's campaign within the limits of the Siberian Khanate marked the beginning of the development of Siberia by the Russians. The Cossacks moved beyond the Urals. The feat of Yermak and his squad was forever inscribed in the Siberian chronicles.

And what does the name "Siberia" actually mean? There are many different judgments on this score. The most substantiated today are two hypotheses. Some researchers believe that the word "Siberia" came from the Mongolian "Shibir", which can literally be translated as "forest thicket"; other scholars argue that the word "Siberia" comes from the self-name of one of the ethnic groups, the so-called "Sabirs". Both of these options have the right to exist, but which of them really takes place in history, one can only guess.

Remembering the words of Lomonosov: “Russian power will grow with Siberia,” you involuntarily think: how would the fate of Russia have been if Siberia had not been included in it - this vast territory, rich in natural resources, providing almost the entire country.

In Moscow, the development of the Siberian lands was considered a task of paramount importance. The composition of the first settlers was quite diverse. In addition to the Cossacks, service people and fishermen, artisans and plowed peasants went to Siberia according to the sovereign decree.

A significant part of the settlers were exiles from among criminals and foreigners from among prisoners of war. The resettlement wave attracted the Zyryans, Kazan Tatars, Mari, Mordovians, Chuvashs. Siberia became attractive for the serfs, who hoped to get rid of any oppression in the new lands.

The government was often forced to turn a blind eye to the departure of former serfs to Siberia. Monasteries contributed to colonization. With all the diversity of the driving forces of colonization, the majority of settlers were residents of the northern Russian districts, where there was no boyar and landownership. Long before Yermak, North Russian industrialists were familiar with the Trans-Urals, fur trade was strongly developed in the north.

Sources: knowledge.allbest.ru, ataman-ermak.ru, turboreferat.ru, bibliofond.ru, 5ballov.qip.ru

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ACCESSION OF SIBERIA TO RUSSIA, the inclusion of Siberia and its population into the Russian state in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. It was accompanied by military-political and administrative-legal subordination of the Siberian peoples to Russian power, their political, legal and cultural integration into Russian society, geographical and historical-ethnographic study of new territories, their economic development by the state and immigrants from Russia. The accession of Siberia to Russia was a continuation of the Russian (East Slavic) colonization and expansion of its state territory by Russia-Russia, it ensured the transformation of Russia into a European-Asian power.

The reasons that directly determined in the XVI-XVII centuries. the advance of the Russians to the east were the elimination of the military threat from the Siberian Khanate, the extraction of furs as an important article of Russian exports, the search for new trade routes and partners, the occupation of territories that had economic potential (agricultural land, minerals, etc.), an increase in the number subjects-taxpayers by explaining the Siberian natives, the desire of a part of the Russian population (peasants, townspeople, Cossacks) to avoid the strengthening of serfdom and fiscal oppression in European Russia. From the beginning of the XVIII century. an ever greater role was played by the geopolitical interests of the Russian government - the strengthening of Russia's position in the Asia-Pacific region and claims to the status of a great colonial empire. The prerequisites for the annexation of Siberia to Russia were the strengthening of the military-political potential of Moscow Rus', the expansion of trade relations with Europe and Asia, the annexation of the Urals and the Volga region (Kazan and Astrakhan khanates). The main Russian routes in Siberia were largely determined by the hydrography of the region, its powerful water arteries, which were for the Russians in the 17th century. main routes of travel. In the annexation of Siberia to Russia, state and free people colonization, state and private interests organically combined and interacted. The main role in this process in the second half of the XVI - early XVIII century. service people played, acting both on government orders and on their own initiative (mainly in Eastern Siberia), as well as industrial people who went east in search of new fur mining areas. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. the main role of the military-colonization element was performed by the Cossacks. The completion of the accession process was the establishment of Russian political power and jurisdiction, expressed at first in the creation of strongholds, declarations on behalf of the monarch of the citizenship of the local population (“the sovereign’s word”), its swearing in (sherti) and taxation (explanation), inclusion territories into the state administrative-territorial system of government. The most important factor that ensured the success of the annexation was the resettlement to new lands and the settlement of the Russian population there (primarily the peasantry).

Siberian ethnic groups perceived the establishment of Russian power in different ways, depending on the characteristics of ethnogenesis, the level of their socio-economic and political development, the degree of familiarity with the system of domination-subordination, the ethno-political situation, the interest in Russian protection from hostile neighbors, the presence of external influence from foreign states. The pace and nature of the accession was largely determined by the inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic contradictions that existed among the Siberian peoples, which, as a rule, greatly facilitated the subordination of disparate aboriginal societies. The skillful actions of the Russian government to attract the aboriginal elite to the side of Russia (distribution of gifts, rendering honors, exemption from paying yasak, enlistment with pay, baptism, etc.) played a role, which turned it into a conductor of Russian politics.

The accession of different territories of Siberia had a wide range of options: from quick to long, from peaceful to military. The Russian-native armed confrontation, however, did not have the character of a large-scale war: military. actions, sometimes accompanied by serious battles and mutual cruelty, were interspersed with periods of peaceful contacts and even allied relations.

The acquaintance of Russians with Siberia began at the end of the 11th century, when the Novgorodians paved the way to the land of the mysterious Ugra, located in the north of the Urals and Trans-Urals (see Campaigns of Novgorodians in the Northern Trans-Urals in the 12th-15th centuries). In the XII - the first half of the XV century. Novgorod squads periodically appeared in Ugra, they were engaged in fur trade, barter and tribute collection. In the XII - early XIII century. on the “fur route” the Vladimir-Suzdal principality competed with the Novgorodians, subordinating the Kama region. However, the expansion was interrupted by the Mongol invasion. In 1265 Yugra land was mentioned among the volosts subordinate to Novgorod. But the dependence of the Yugra princes on the boyar republic was nominal and was limited to the irregular payment of tribute-yasak. By the beginning of the XIV century. Most of the Ural Yugras, fleeing from the Novgorod campaigns and explanations, migrated beyond the Urals. By 1364, the first known campaign of the Novgorodians beyond the Urals, in the Lower Ob region, dates back. From the second half of the XIV century. in the Urals, the influence of the Moscow principality began to spread, which organized the Christianization of the Komi-Zyryans and the subordination of the Kama region. In the second half of the XV century. Moscow troops carried out several raids into the Urals and Siberia, to the lower reaches of the Ob and Irtysh, where they collected tribute to the grand ducal treasury (see Campaigns of Moscow governors in the Northern Trans-Urals in the 15th-16th centuries). After Novgorod lost its independence in 1478, all of its northern possessions became part of the Muscovite state. By the end of the XV century. the power of Moscow was formally recognized by a number of Ostyak and Vogul principalities of the Lower Ob region, and the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III appropriated the title of "Prince of Yugorsky, Kondinsky and Obdorsky" to himself. By 1480, Moscow had established relations with the Tyumen Khanate, which had gone from initially allied to hostile: in 1483 the Muscovite army fought the Tatars on Tavda and Tobol, and in 1505 the Tyumen Tatars raided Russian possessions in Great Perm. At the beginning of the XVI century. The Tyumen Khanate disappeared, its lands were ceded to the emerging Siberian Khanate, in which the Taibugid dynasty was established.

In the first half of the XVI century. The Moscow state did not show activity in the Siberian direction. The initiative passed to merchants and industrial people, who, in addition to the land route, mastered the sea route from the Dvina and Pechora to the Ob. Around the middle of the XVI century. in the north of Western Siberia, the first Russian settlements began to appear - trading and fishing trading posts-winter huts. During the Moscow-Kazan wars of 1445-52, the rulers of the Siberian Khanate participated in the anti-Russian coalition, their detachments raided Great Perm. In the 1550s there was a turning point in Russian-Tatar relations. The Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were annexed to the Moscow state, the Great Nogai Horde recognized Russian citizenship. In 1555-57 the Siberian Khan Ediger, seeking support in the fight against Kuchum, the son of the Bukhara ruler Murtaza, recognized himself as a vassal of Ivan IV with an annual tribute payment. However, the outbreak of the Livonian War did not allow the king to help Yediger, who in 1563 was defeated by Kuchum. The new ruler of the Siberian Khanate pursued a hostile policy towards Moscow; in 1573-82, his detachments, with the support of the Pelym prince Ablegirim, attacked Russian possessions in the Urals. Under the conditions of the Livonian War, Ivan IV entrusted the defense of the northeastern borders of the state to the merchants, salt producers and landowners Stroganovs, who hired free Cossacks. In 1581 or 1582, a Cossack detachment led by ataman Yermak, on his own initiative, supported by the Stroganovs, set off on a Siberian campaign, which, starting as a typical Cossack robbery raid, radically changed the situation in Western Siberia and the nature of Russian-Siberian politics. Having defeated the army of Kuchum and the Ostyak and Vogul princes allied to him in the battles on the Babasan tract (Tobol River) and on the Chuvashev Cape (Irtysh River), the Ermakov squad occupied the capital of the Khanate - Kashlyk. By 1585, the Cossacks inflicted another series of defeats on the Kuchumovsky Tatars and explained part of the Tatars, Ostyaks and Voguls. After the death of Yermak, the remnants of his squad in 1585 went to Rus'. But by this time, the Russian government, having learned about the successes of the Cossacks, decided to occupy the eastern territories rich in furs.

Since 1585, government detachments began to arrive in Western Siberia. They were engaged in the construction of prisons and the subjugation of the surrounding population. By the end of the XVI century. Obsky town (1585), Tyumen (1586), Tobolsk (1587), Lozvinsky town (1588), Pelym (1593), Berezov (1593), Surgut (1594), Tara (1594), Obdorsky town (1595) were founded, Narym (1595), Ketsk (1596), Verkhoturye (1598), Turinsk (1600), and the lands of the Siberian Tatars, Ob Ugrians (Ostyaks and Voguls) and part of the Samoyeds became part of Russia. Some of the local princes (for example, Lugui, Alach, Igichi, Bardak, Tsingop) recognized Russian power without resistance and provided it with military support. But the Pelymsky, Kondinsky, Obdorsky, Kunovatsky, Lyapinsky principalities, as well as the Pegaya Horde, were conquered by force of arms. Civil strife began in the Siberian Khanate: the last representative of the Taibugid dynasty, Seyid-Ahmad (Seydyak), came out against Kuchum, a number of Kuchum's murzas defected to his side. Kuchum fled to the Baraba steppe and continued to fight the Russians. In 1587 Sayyid-Ahmad was captured. After that, most of the Siberian Tatars recognized the new government, their nobility was enrolled in the Russian service. In 1598, the Russian-Tatar detachment of A. Voeikov on the Irmen River (a tributary of the Ob) inflicted a final defeat on Kuchum. The Siberian Khanate ceased to exist.

By the beginning of the XVII century. Russian citizenship was recognized by the Tara, Baraba and Chat Tatars. The prince of the Eushta Tatars, Toyan Ermashetev, who arrived in Moscow, requested the construction of Russian fortifications in his lands to protect against the attacks of the Yenisei Kyrgyz. In 1604, a Russian-Tatar detachment, with the support of the Kodsky Ostyaks, founded Tomsk, which became the base for the Russian development of the Middle Ob region. In 1618, Kuznetsk was established on the land of the Kuznetsk Tatars (Abins and Kumandins). As a result, almost the entire territory of Western Siberia was subordinated to the Russians. However, certain groups of the local population during the XVII century. periodically raised uprisings (the unrest of the Voguls on Konda in 1606, the siege of Berezov by the Pelym Voguls and the Surgut Ostyaks in 1607, the performance of the Ostyaks and Tatars against Tyumen in 1609, the Voguls against Pelym and Verkhoturye in 1612, the Ostyaks and Samoyeds against Berezov in 1665, attempts to revolt Lower Ob Ostyaks and Samoyeds in 1662-63 and at the beginning of the 18th century, etc.). For a long time, the Principality of Kodskoye (until 1644), headed by the princes Alachev, and the Principality of Obdorsk (until the 19th century), where the dynasty of the princes Taishin established itself, remained in a special position, while maintaining the status of principalities and semi-independence. Almost beyond the reach of Russian power were the tundra Samoyeds, who roamed from Pechora in the west to Taimyr in the east, paid yasak irregularly and repeatedly in the 17th-18th centuries. who attacked the Ostyaks, yasak collectors, industrial and commercial people, Russian winter huts and even Obdorsk (1649, 1678/79). The crown administration preferred to build relations with them through the Obdorsk Ostyak princes.

The main goal of the Russian movement to Siberia - the extraction of furs - also determined its main routes - along the taiga strip, where there was a slight density of the aboriginal population. By the 1580s Russian sailors mastered the sea route from the White Sea to Mangazeya - the region of the mouths of the Taz and Yenisei rivers. By the beginning of the XVII century. industrial people founded winter huts here and established trade with local Samoyeds. In 1600-01, government detachments appeared. On the Taz River, they founded the city of Mangazeya (1601), which became an important base for explorers who traveled further east. By 1607, the Turukhansk (at the mouth of the Turukhan) and Inbatsky (at the mouth of the Yeloguy) winter huts were built, then the Russian advance along the Podkamennaya and Lower Tunguska, Pyasina, Kheta and Khatanga began. The subjugation and explanation of the nomadic Samoyeds and Tunguses who lived here dragged on for the entire 17th century, and some of their groups (“the Yuratskaya Purovskaya Samoyed”) resisted the Russians in the future.

Russians got to Mangazeya mainly by sea, but by 1619 the government, concerned about the attempts of English and Dutch sailors to master the route to the Ob and Yenisei and dissatisfied with the duty-free export of Siberian furs, banned the Mangazeya sea route. This led to the development of the southern routes from Western Siberia to Eastern Siberia - along the tributaries of the middle Ob, primarily along the Ket River. In 1618, Makovsky Ostrog was founded on the portage between the Ketya and the Yenisei, on the Yenisei in 1618 - Yeniseisk and in 1628 - Krasnoyarsk, in 1628 on the Kan River - Kansky Ostrog and on the Angara River - Rybensky Ostrog. The Samoyedic and Ket-speaking peoples of the Middle Yenisei quickly recognized Russian citizenship, but the Tungus, who lived east of the Yenisei in the Western Angara region, put up stubborn resistance, their subjugation dragged on until the 1640s. And in the future, until the beginning of the 19th century, part of the Tungus, who roamed in taiga regions remote from Russian settlements, sought to minimize contacts both with government officials and with Russian settlers.

Russian advance to the south of Siberia in the 17th century. came up against the active resistance of the nomadic peoples. In the West Siberian steppes, the descendants of Kuchum, the Kuchumoviches, tried to resist the Russian authorities, who, using the support of the Nogais first, then the Kalmyks and Dzhungars, raided Russian and yasak settlements and initiated uprisings in 1628-29 of the Tara, Baraba and Chat Tatars, in 1662 - parts of the Tatars and Voguls. By the beginning of the XVIII century. Kuchumoviches as an active political force left the historical stage. In the first half of the XVII century. the Russian steppe borderland was disturbed by the Kalmyks, who roamed across Kazakhstan from Mongolia to the Volga region, in the second half of the century - by the Bashkirs, who raised anti-Russian uprisings (1662-64 and 1681-83). From the end of the 17th century the raids of the Kazakhs began, wandering to the West Siberian borders. In the upper reaches of the Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei, the Russians encountered military-political associations of the Teleuts (ulus of Abak and his descendants) and the Yenisei Kyrgyz (Ezersky, Altysarsky, Altyrsky and Tuba principalities), who did not want to put up with the loss of the territory subject to them and the population dependent on them - Kyshtyms, whom the Russians sought to transfer into their citizenship. Tomsk, Kuznetsk, Yeniseisk and prisons - Melessky (1621), Chatsky (about 1624), Achinsky (1641), Karaulny (1675), Lomovsky (1675) served as the support bases for the distribution of Russian authorities in the steppe. From a part of the local "Tatars" (Eushtins, chats, Teleuts) in Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kuznetsk, units of service Tatars were formed.

The main concern for the Russians was delivered by the Kyrgyz principalities, which themselves were vassals and tributaries, first of the Western Mongolian (Khotogoyt) state of the Altyn Khans, then of the Dzungar Khanate. Maneuvering between the interests of the Russian tsar, the Mongol Altyn Khan and the Dzungarian Khuntaiji, the Kyrgyz either made peace and even agreed to pay yasak, then attacked the Russian and yasak volosts of the Tomsk, Kuznetsk and Krasnoyarsk districts, including besieging Tomsk (1614), Krasnoyarsk ( 1667, 1679, 1692), Kuznetsk (1700), Abakansky (1675), Achinsk (1673, 1699), Kansky (1678) prisons were burned. Relations with the Teleuts from initially allied (contracts of 1609, 1621) also turned into hostile (participation of the Teleuts in the Tatar uprising of 1628-29), then into peaceful ones. The Russian side, using the contradictions between the Altyn-Khans and Dzungaria, Teleuts and Kyrgyz, not only held back the onslaught of the nomads, but also inflicted repeated tangible defeats on them and stubbornly explained the ethnically diverse South Siberian population - Kumandins, Tubalars, Teleses, Tau-Teleuts , Chelkans, Telengits, Chulyms, Kachins, Arints, Kyzyls, Basagars, Meles, Sagays, Shors, Mads, Mators, Sayans-Soyots and others. In addition to military force, the tsarist government sought to use negotiations with the Kyrgyz princes, the Altyn-khans and the Khuntaija to consolidate itself in southern Siberia.

The struggle for subjects between Russia, the Altyn-Khans and Dzungaria, as well as between Russia, the Teleut and Kyrgyz principalities led to the establishment in the Baraba steppe, Altai, Mountain Shoria, the Kuznetsk and Khakas-Minusinsk basins and the Western Sayans (Sayan and Kaysotskaya lands) tributary, when a significant part of the local population was forced to pay tribute to the Russians, Kyrgyz, Teleuts, Dzhungars and Khotogoits. During this struggle, the Kyshtyms were guided by the one who was stronger at the moment. They sometimes recognized the Russian authorities, sometimes they refused to pay yasak and participated in anti-Russian demonstrations. But the number of independent uprisings of the yasak Kyshtyms was small, they, as a rule, joined the Kyrgyz, Teleuts, Dzhungars or enjoyed their support. In 1667 the state of Altyn Khans was defeated by Dzungaria and disappeared in 1686. After that, Altai (Teleut land) and the south of the Khakas-Minusinsk basin (Kyrgyz land) became part of the Dzungarian possessions. A double tribute regime was established on the Russian-Dzhungar borderlands. Separate groups of Teleuts, not recognizing the dominance of Dzungaria, in the 1660-70s. migrated to the Russian borders, were settled in the Kuznetsk and Tomsk districts, some of them, instead of paying yasak, undertook to carry out military service to the tsar (the so-called traveling teleuts).

Having reached the Yenisei, the Russians in the 1620s. moved further east and began to subjugate the Baikal, Transbaikalia and Yakutia. In contrast to Western Siberia, where relatively large military contingents carried out operations according to government instructions, in Eastern Siberia, although under the general control and leadership of the authorities, small detachments of explorers often acted on their own initiative and at their own expense.

In 1625-27 V. Tyumenets, P. Firsov and M. Perfilyev went up and collected information about the "brotherly people" (Buryats). In 1628 P.I. Beketov - along the Angara to the upper reaches of the Lena and V. Chermeninov - along the Uda. The Baikal Buryats (Bulagats, Ashehabats, Ikinats, Ekhirits, Khongodors, Khorints, Gotels) initially treated the Russians peacefully, but the slander and robberies committed by the Cossacks (the actions of the detachment of Ya.I. Khripunov and the Krasnoyarsk Cossack freemen in 1629), as well as the construction (1630), Fraternal (1631), Kirensky (1631), Verkholensky (1641), Osinsky (1644/46), Nizhneudinsky (1646/48), Kultuksky (1647) and Balagansky (1654) prisons forced them to take up arms. In 1634, the Buryats defeated D. Vasiliev's detachment and destroyed the Bratsk Ostrog, in 1636 they besieged the Bratsk Ostrog, in 1644 they besieged the Verkholensk and Osinsky Ostrogs, and in 1658 a significant part of the Ikinats, Ashehabats, Bulagats, Ekhirits and Khongodors, having risen in revolt, fled to Mongolia. But the resistance of the Buryats was scattered, civil strife continued among them, in which the rival clans tried to rely on the Cossacks. By the 1660s the active resistance of the Baikal Buryats was suppressed, they recognized Russian citizenship. The Baikal Tungus, who were tributaries of the Buryats, relatively quickly and peacefully reoriented themselves towards the recognition of the Russian authorities. With the founding of Irkutsk in 1661, the annexation of the Baikal region was completed. In 1669, the Idinsky prison was set up, in 1671 - Yandinsky, about 1675 - Chechuy, in the 1690s. - Belsky, in 1676 - Tunkinsky prison, which marked the border of Russian possessions in the Eastern Sayans.

In 1621, the first news about the "big river" Lena was received in Mangazeya. In the 1620s - early 1630s. from Mangazeya, Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk and Tobolsk to the Lena, Vilyui and Aldan went military fishing expeditions of A. Dobrynsky, M. Vasiliev, V. Shakhov, V.E. Bugra, I. Galkina, P.I. Beketova and others who explained to the local population. In 1632, the Yakuts (Lensky) prison was founded, in 1635/36 - Olekminsky, in 1633/34 - Verkhnevilyuisky winter hut, in 1633/35 - Zhigansky. The Yakut clans (Betuns, Megins, Katylins, Dyupsins, Kangalas and others) at first tried to resist the Cossack detachments. However, the contradictions that existed between them, used by the Russians, doomed their struggle to failure. After the defeat of the most irreconcilable Toyons in 1632-37 and 1642, the Yakuts quickly recognized Russian power and subsequently even assisted in the conquest of other peoples.

Having occupied the central regions of Yakutia, the Cossacks and industrialists rushed further to the northeast. In 1633-38, I. Rebrov and M. Perfilyev went along the Lena to the Arctic Ocean, reached Yana and Indigirka by sea, discovering the Yukagir land. In 1635-39 E.Yu. Buza and P. Ivanov laid out an overland route from Yakutsk through the Verkhoyansk Range to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka. In 1639, I. Moskvitin's detachment reached the Pacific Ocean (at the mouth of the Ulya River on the coast of Okhotsk), and in 1640 sailed to the mouth of the Amur. In 1642-43 explorers M.V. Stadukhin, D. Yarilo, I. Erastov and others penetrated Alazeya and Kolyma, where they met the Alazeya Chukchi. In 1648 S.I. Dezhnev and F.A. Popov by sea rounded the northeastern tip of the Asian continent. In 1650 M.V. Stadukhin and S. Motor. From the middle of the XVII century. detachments of explorers and sailors began to explore the ways to Chukotka, to the Koryak land and to Kamchatka. In the annexed lands in the second half of the 1630-40s. they began to build prisons (Verkhoyansky, Zashiversky, Alazeysky, Srednekolymsky, Nizhnekolymsky, Okhotsky, Anadyrsky) and winter huts (Nizhnyansky, Podshiversky, Uyandinsky, Butalsky, Olyubensky, Upper Kolymsky, Omolonsky and others). In 1679, the Udsk prison was founded - the southernmost point of the Russian presence on the Okhotsk coast. All these fortifications became strongholds for the subjugation of the surrounding population - the Yukagirs, Tungus, Koryaks and Chukchi, most of whom, with weapons in their hands, tried to resist the explanation, repeatedly attacking Russian detachments, prisons and winter huts. By the beginning of the XVIII century. the Russians mostly succeeded in breaking the resistance of the Yukagirs and Tungus.

In 1643, the Russians - the detachment of S. Skorokhodov - first went to Transbaikalia, to the region of the Barguzin River. In the second half of the 1640-50s. beyond Baikal, where the Buryats-Khorins, Mongols-Tabanguts, Tunguses and Samoyed-Turkic-speaking Kaisots, Yugdins and Soyots (in the Eastern Sayans) lived, detachments of V. Kolesnikov, I. Pokhabov, I. Galkin, P. Beketov, A.F. penetrated . Pashkov. The Cossacks founded Verkhneangarsky (1646/47), Barguzinsky (1648), Bauntovsky (1648/52), Irgensky (1653), Telenbinsky (1658), Nerchinsky (1658), Kuchidsky (1662), Selenginsky (1665), Udinsky (1666) , Yeravninsky (1667/68, 1675), Itantsinsky (1679), Argunsky (1681), Ilyinsky (1688) and Kabansky (1692) prisons. The annexation of Transbaikalia was predominantly peaceful, although there were separate armed clashes with the Tabanguts and Tungus. The proximity of the large northern Mongolian (Khalkha) khanates forced the Russians to act with great caution and be loyal to the local population. At the same time, the Mongol raids pushed the Trans-Baikal Khori and Tungus to quickly accept Russian citizenship. The Mongols, who considered Transbaikalia their Kyshtym territory, but at that time were concerned about the threat posed by the Manchus and Dzungars, did not interfere with the Russians, whose small numbers initially did not cause them much concern. Moreover, the northern Mongol rulers Tushetu Khan and Tsetsen Khan at one time hoped to receive Russian support in the fight against the possible aggression of the Manchus. But soon the situation changed. In 1655 Khalkha-Mongolia became a vassal of the Manchu Emperor. From the 1660s Mongols and tabanguts began to attack Russian prisons and settlements in the Baikal and Transbaikalia. Simultaneously, there were Russian-Mongolian negotiations on the ownership of the territory and population, but they were not successful. In 1674, the Cossacks on the Uda River defeated the Tabanguts, who left their lands in the Yeravna steppe and went to Mongolia.

Simultaneously with Transbaikalia, the Russians began to occupy the Amur region. In 1643-44, V. Poyarkov, leaving Yakutsk, went up the Aldan and its tributary Uchur to the Stanovoy Range, then went down the Zeya to the Amur and reached its mouth. In 1651, along the Lena and Olekma, E. Khabarov came out to the Amur at the confluence of the Shilka and Argun. In 1654, P. Beketov's detachment joined the Khabarovsk people. On the Amur and its tributaries explorers built Ust-Strelochny (about 1651), Achansky (1651) and Kumarsky (1654) prisons. By the mid 1650s. they organized the collection of yasak from the entire population of the Amur, the lower reaches of the Sungari and Ussuri - Daurs, Duchers, Tunguses, Natks, Gilyaks and others. The actions of the Poyarkovites and Khabarovskites, among whom the Cossack freemen predominated, provoked an armed rebuff from the Daurs and Duchers. In addition, the Manchus opposed the Russians, who founded the Qing dynasty in China and considered the Amur region a sphere of their interests. Having beaten off their attacks in 1652 and 1655, the Cossacks were defeated in 1658 near the mouth of the Sungari. Having knocked out the Russians from the Amur and taken away almost all the Daurs and Duchers from there, the Manchus left. In 1665, the Russians reappeared in the Amur region and set up Albazinsky (1665), Verkhozeysky (1677), Selemdzhinsky (Selenbinsky) (1679) and Dolonsky (Zeya) (1680) prisons there. In response, the Manchus resumed hostilities. They were supported by a number of Khalkha khans, dependent on the Qing and interested in eliminating the Russian presence in Transbaikalia. Attempts by the tsarist government to settle relations with Qing China through diplomacy failed. The result of the armed confrontation on the Amur with the Manchus and in Transbaikalia with the Mongols was the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689, according to which Russia ceded the Amur region to China, and the state border was defined along the Argun and the Stanovoy Range to the upper reaches of the Uda, which flows into the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. During the hostilities in Transbaikalia, the Buryats and Tungus mainly supported the Russian authorities. In 1689, most of the tabanguts, settled between Selenginsky and Nerchinsk, took Russian citizenship.

By the end of the XVII century. the main territories of Siberia turned out to be part of Russia. In the south, Russian possessions went to the forest-steppe borderlands and were roughly outlined along a line passing a little south of Yalutorovsk, Tobolsk, Tara, Tomsk, Kuznetsk, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhneudinsk, Tunkinsky prison, Selenginsk, Argun prison, further along the Stanovoy ridge to Udsky prison on the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk . In the north, the natural border was the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In the east, the extreme points of the Russian authorities were the Okhotsk and Anadyr prisons.

The process of Russia's annexation of new territories continued in the 18th century. As a result of the campaign of 1697-99 V.V. Atlasov, the subjugation of Kamchatka began. Relying on Nizhnekamchatsky (1697), Verkhnekamchatsky (1703) and Bolsheretsky (1704) prisons, the Cossacks by the 1720s. explained the Itelmens and the "Kuril peasants". Their attempts to resist (1707-11, 1731) were suppressed. In 1711, a Cossack expedition led by D.Ya. Antsiferova and I.P. Kozyrevsky visited the first (Shumsha) and, possibly, the second (Paramushir) islands of the Kuril chain. At the same time, from Anadyrsk and Okhotsk, the explanation of the Koryaks intensified, a significant part of which stubbornly did not recognize Russian domination. Equally futile were attempts to explain the Chukchi who lived on the Chukchi Peninsula.

From the end of the 1720s. The Russian government, planning to expand and strengthen Russia's positions in the northern Pacific Ocean, stepped up efforts to subjugate the peoples and lands in the extreme northeast of Siberia. In 1727, a military expedition was created, later called the Anadyr Party, headed by A.F. Shestakov and D.I. Pavlutsky. The expedition, having conquered the "non-peaceful foreigners", was supposed to provide rear and base for the Russian advance to North America, the search for ways to which was one of the tasks of the First and Second Kamchatka expeditions. But the campaigns of 1729-32 by Shestakov and Pavlutsky, who preferred brute force to diplomacy, provoked armed opposition from the Koryaks and Chukchi. The situation was complicated by the fact that from the end of the 17th century, the Chukchi reindeer herders, expanding their pasture lands, began to systematically attack the Yukagirs and Koryaks. The Russians were supported by the reindeer Yukaghirs and Koryaks, who lived in the Anadyr region and suffered from Chukchi raids, as well as the Tungus-Lamuts, who settled in the territory of the Okhotsk Koryaks. All territorial groups of the Chukchi strongly resisted the Russians. The settled Koryaks, who lived along the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Bering Sea, either fought with the Russians, then stopped hostilities and even paid yasak. At the same time, armaments took place. clashes between the Chukchi and Koryaks. Apogee of war. actions fell on the 2nd floor. 1740s - 1st floor. 1750s K ser. 1750s as a result of punitive campaigns and the construction of fortresses (Gizhiginskaya, Tigilskaya, Viliginskaya and others), the Koryaks were broken and recognized Russian power. In 1764, Empress Catherine II announced their acceptance into Russian citizenship. At the same time, having failed to cope with the Chukchi, the Russian government abandoned forceful measures and switched to diplomacy. During the negotiations in the second half of the XVIII century. peace agreements were reached with the influential Chukchi toyons on the terms of paying yasak by the Chukchi on a voluntary basis. In 1764 the Anadyr Party was abolished, and in 1771 the Anadyr prison was liquidated. In 1779 the Chukchi were declared subjects of Russia.

The accession of the northeast of Siberia was accompanied by sea expeditions to explore the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean (see Geographical studies of Siberia), which led to the discovery of Alaska, the Aleutian and Kuril Islands. The initiative in their development was taken over by merchants and industrial people who rushed there in pursuit of furs. By the end of the XVIII century. they founded several Russian settlements in Alaska, the islands of Kodiak, Afognak and Sitka, which led to the emergence of the so-called Russian America. In 1799, the Russian-American Company was established, which included the Kuril Islands in its sphere of interests.

In the XVIII century. the international situation on the South Siberian borders has changed. From the end of the 17th century began a sharp rivalry between Dzungaria and Qing China for the possession of Mongolian lands. A struggle also unfolded between Dzungaria and the Kazakhs. All this diverted the attention and forces of the Dzungars from the south of Western Siberia, Altai and Khakassia, forced them not to aggravate relations with Russia. In 1703-06, in order to increase their army, the Dzungars took most of the Yenisei Kyrgyz and Altai Teleuts to their lands. Taking advantage of this, the Russian side, having eliminated the remaining small groups of Kyrgyz, quickly occupied the vacated territory, where yasak people began to move - Beltirs, Sagais, Kachins, Koybals. With the construction of Umrevinsky (1703), new Abakan (1707), Sayan (1718), Bikatunsky (1709, 1718), Chaussky (1713), Berdsky (1716) prisons and the Beloyarsky fortress (1717), Northern (steppe) Altai became part of Russia and the Khakas-Minusinsk basin. From the end of the 1710s. from the Southern Urals to Altai, fortresses, outposts and redoubts are erected to protect against nomadic raids, which form fortified (border) lines. Their advance to the south ensured the annexation by Russia of significant steppe regions up the Tobol, Ishim, north of the Irtysh and in the foothills of the Altai. The attempts of the Jungars to stop the Russian advance were not successful. Mutual Russian-Dzungarian territorial disputes persisted. Part of the Baraba Tatars, Yenisei Beltirs, Mads, Koibals, Altai Az-Kyshtyms, Kergeshs, Yusses, Kumandins, Toguls, Tagaptsy, Shors, Tau-Teleuts, Teleses remained in the position of Dvoedans. From the beginning of the XVIII century. Territorial claims to the upper reaches of the Yenisei (Uriankhai-Tuva) began to be presented by the northern Mongol khans.

In 1691, the Manchus finally subjugated northern Mongolia, which brought to the fore the issue of delimiting the possessions of Russia and China. As a result of negotiations on the border and the status of border buffer territories between the empires, the Burinsky Treaty was signed in 1727, according to which the Russian-Chinese border was demarcated from Argun in the east to the Shabin-Dabag pass in the Sayans in the west. Transbaikalia was recognized as a territory of Russia, and Tuva (Uriankhai Territory) - of China. After the defeat of Dzungaria by the Qing troops in 1755-58, China took possession of the whole of Tuva and began to lay claim to the Altai Mountains. Fleeing from the Qing aggression, many zaisans of Gorny Altai, who had previously been Dzungarian subjects, turned to the Russian authorities with a request to accept them with a subject population into Russian citizenship, which was carried out in 1756. However, the weakness of the military forces stationed in Siberia did not allow the Russian government to prevent the spread of Qing influence in the southern regions of the Altai Mountains, which was carried out mainly by force. St. Petersburg's proposals to delimit this territory were rejected by Beijing. As a result, the South Altai lands (the Ulagan plateau, the Kurai steppe, the basins of the Chuya, Argut, Chulyshman, Bashkaus, and Tolysh rivers) turned into a buffer zone, and their population - Teleses and Telengits - into Russian-Chinese double-dancers, while maintaining, however, their considerable independence. in internal affairs. From the second half of the XVIII century. Russian settlements of fugitive schismatics, soldiers, peasants, working people from the Kolyvano-Voskresensky (Altai) factories - the so-called Altai masons - began to appear in the Altai Mountains, Russian-Altai trade developed. At the turn of the 1820-30s. Biysk merchants founded the Kosh-Agach trading post in the Chui valley. China, for its part, did not make any attempts at the economic development of the Altai Mountains.

In the first half of the XIX century. Russia has significantly strengthened its position in Asia. The process of joining the Kazakh zhuzes, which began in the previous century, intensified. By the 1850s The Semirechensk Territory was included in Russia up to the Ili River, and the development of the Trans-Ili Territory began in 1853. After the expeditions of A.F. Middendorf (1844-45) and N.Kh. Agte (1848-50) established the absence of Chinese settlements on the Amur and the non-subordination of the local population to China, and the expedition of G.I. Nevelskoy (1849-50) proved the navigability of the Amur estuary and founded the Nikolaevsky post there (now Nikolaevsk-on-Amur), in the 1850s. on the initiative of the East Siberian Governor-General N.N. Muravyov The Amur region was occupied by Russian troops. Taking advantage of the military-political weakening of China, Russia has obtained from Beijing the official recognition of its rights in the Altai Mountains and the Far East. According to the Aigun Treaty (1858), the Tianjin Treaty (1858) and the Beijing Treaty (1860), the Russian-Chinese border passed along the Amur, Ussuri, Lake Khanko and to the mouth of the Tumynjiang River. Blagoveshchensk (1858), Khabarovsk (1858) and Vladivostok (1860) were founded in the Amur and Primorye. In 1864, the Chuguchak protocol was signed, which determined the border in Gorny Altai from Shabin-Dabag to Lake Zaisan. The Altai double-dancers were transferred to the department of Russia, in 1865 they took an oath of allegiance to the Russian monarch.

In 1853, Russian settlements (Muravyevsky and Ilyinsky military posts) appeared on Sakhalin, the first information about which was obtained as early as the middle of the 17th century. This led to a conflict with Japan, which was developing the southern part of the island, as well as the Kuril Islands. In 1855, under the Treaty of Shimoda, the Russian-Japanese border in the Kuriles was determined; it passed between the islands of Urup and Iturup; Sakhalin remained undivided. In 1867, the Russian government sold to the United States the possessions of the Russian-American Company in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In 1875, under the Treaty of St. Petersburg, Russia ceded the northern Kuril Islands to Japan, securing all rights to Sakhalin in return. In 1905, as a result of Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, the southern part of Sakhalin (up to the 50th parallel) was torn off by Japan.

The accession of Gorny Altai facilitated the expansion of Russian economic influence in Tuva (Uriankhai region). Here the development of gold mines begins, fisheries are mastered. By the end of the XIX century. trading posts are opened and the first peasant settlers appear. Since 1911, as a result of the national liberation movement of Tuvans, Chinese power in Tuva has been virtually eliminated. On April 18, 1914, at the request of a number of Tuvan noins and lamas, Russia officially established a protectorate over Tuva, which, under the name Uryankhai Territory, was administratively subordinate to the Irkutsk governor-general.

Literature

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5. History of the discovery and development of the Northern Sea Route. M., 1956. T. 1;
6. Zalkind E.M. Accession of Buryatia to Russia. Ulan-Ude, 1958;
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8. Aleksandrov V.A. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th - early 18th centuries. (Yenisei Territory). M., 1964;
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21. Sherstova L.I. Turks and Russians in Southern Siberia: Ethnopolitical Processes and Ethnocultural Dynamics of the 17th - Early 20th Centuries. Novosibirsk, 2005.

One of the most important stages in the formation of Russian statehood was the conquest of Siberia. The development of these lands took almost 400 years and many events took place during this time. Ermak became the first Russian conqueror of Siberia.

Ermak Timofeevich

The exact surname of this person has not been established, it is likely that she did not exist at all - Yermak was of an humble family. Ermak Timofeevich was born in 1532, in those days a middle name or nickname was often used to name a common person. The exact origin of Yermak has not been clarified, but there is an assumption that he was a runaway peasant, who stood out for his enormous physical strength. At first, Yermak was a chur among the Volga Cossacks - a laborer and a squire.

In battle, a smart and brave young man quickly got himself weapons, participated in battles, and thanks to his strength and organizational skills, he became an ataman in a few years. In 1581 he commanded a flotilla of Cossacks from the Volga, there are suggestions that he fought near Pskov and Novgorod. He is rightfully considered the ancestor of the first marines, which was then called the "plow army". There are other historical versions about the origin of Yermak, but this one is the most popular among historians.

Some are of the opinion that Yermak was of a noble family of Turkic blood, but there are many contradictory points in this version. One thing is clear - Yermak Timofeevich was popular in the military environment until his death, because the post of ataman was selective. Today, Yermak is a historical hero of Russia, whose main merit is the annexation of the Siberian lands to the Russian state.

The idea and goals of the trip

Back in 1579, the merchants Stroganovs invited the Cossacks of Yermak to their Perm region to protect the land from the raids of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. In the second half of 1581, Yermak formed a detachment of 540 soldiers. For a long time, the opinion prevailed that the Stroganovs were the ideologists of the campaign, but now they are more inclined to believe that this was the idea of ​​Yermak himself, and the merchants only financed this campaign. The goal was to find out what lands lie in the East, make friends with the local population and, if possible, defeat the khan and annex the lands under the hand of Tsar Ivan IV.

The great historian Karamzin called this detachment "a small gang of vagabonds." Historians doubt that the campaign was organized with the approval of the central authorities. Most likely, such a decision became a consensus between the authorities, who wanted to get new lands, the merchants, who were concerned about safety from Tatar raids, and the Cossacks, who dreamed of getting rich and showing their prowess in the campaign, only after the khan's capital fell. At first, the tsar was against this campaign, about which he wrote an angry letter to the Stroganovs demanding that Yermak be returned to protect the Perm lands.

Trek Mysteries: It is widely known that the Russians first penetrated into Siberia in quite ancient times. Quite definitely, Novgorodians sailed along the White Sea to the Yugorsky Shar Strait and further beyond it, to the Kara Sea, as early as the 9th century. The first chronicle evidence of such voyages dates back to 1032, which in Russian historiography is considered the beginning of the history of Siberia.

The basis of the detachment was the Cossacks from the Don, led by the glorious chieftains: Koltso Ivan, Mikhailov Yakov, Pan Nikita, Meshcheryak Matvey. In addition to the Russians, a certain number of Lithuanians, Germans and even Tatar soldiers entered the detachment. Cossacks are internationalists in modern terminology, nationality did not play a role for them. They accepted into their ranks all those who were baptized into the Orthodox faith.

But the discipline in the army was strict - the ataman demanded the observance of all Orthodox holidays, fasts, did not tolerate laxity and revelry. The army was accompanied by three priests and one monk. The future conquerors of Siberia embarked on eighty plow boats and set sail towards dangers and adventures.

Crossing the "Stone"

According to some reports, the detachment set out on 09/01/1581, but other historians insist that it was later. The Cossacks moved along the Chusovaya River to the Ural Mountains. On the Tagil Pass, the fighters themselves cut the road with an ax. It was the Cossack custom to drag ships along the ground in the passes, but here it was impossible because of the large number of boulders that could not be removed from the path. Therefore, people had to carry the plows up the slope. At the top of the pass, the Cossacks built Kokuy-gorod and spent the winter there. In the spring they rafted down the Tagil River.

The defeat of the Siberian Khanate

The "acquaintance" of the Cossacks and local Tatars happened on the territory of the present Sverdlovsk region. The Cossacks were fired upon with bows by their opponents, but repulsed the impending attack of the Tatar cavalry with cannons, occupied the city of Chingi-tura in the present Tyumen region. In these places, the conquerors obtained jewelry and furs, participating in many battles along the way.

• On May 5, 1582, at the mouth of the Tura, the Cossacks fought with the troops of six Tatar princes.
• 07.1585 - the battle on the Tobol.
• July 21 - the battle at the Babasan yurts, where Yermak, with volleys of his cannon, stopped a cavalry army of several thousand horsemen galloping at him.
• At the Long Yar, the Tatars fired again at the Cossacks.
• August 14 - the battle near Karachin-gorodok, where the Cossacks captured the rich treasury of Murza Karachi.
• On November 4, Kuchum, with a fifteen thousandth army, organized an ambush near the Chuvash Cape, with him were hired squads of Voguls and Ostyaks. At the most crucial moment, it turned out that the best detachments of Kuchum went on a raid on the city of Perm. The mercenaries fled during the battle, and Kuchum was forced to retreat to the steppe.
• 11.1582 Yermak occupied the capital of the Khanate - the city of Kashlyk.

Historians suggest that Kuchum was of Uzbek origin. It is known for sure that he established power in Siberia by extremely cruel methods. It is not surprising that after his defeat, the local peoples (Khanty) brought gifts and fish to Yermak. As the documents say, Yermak Timofeevich met them with "kindness and greetings" and saw them off "with honor." Having heard about the kindness of the Russian ataman, Tatars and other nationalities began to come to him with gifts.

Trek Mysteries: Yermak's campaign was not the first military campaign in Siberia. The very first information about the military campaign of the Russians in Siberia dates back to 1384, when the Novgorod detachment went to the Pechora, and then, on a northern campaign through the Urals, to the Ob.

Yermak promised to protect everyone from Kuchum and other enemies, overlaying them with yasak - an obligatory tribute. From the leaders, the ataman took an oath of tribute from their peoples - this was then called "wool". After the oath, these peoples were automatically considered subjects of the tsar and were not subjected to any persecution. At the end of 1582, part of Yermak's soldiers were ambushed on the lake, they were completely exterminated. On February 23, 1583, the Cossacks responded to the Khan by capturing his chief commander.

Embassy in Moscow

Yermak in 1582 sent envoys to the tsar, headed by a confidant (I. Koltso). The purpose of the ambassador was to tell the sovereign about the complete defeat of the khan. Ivan the Terrible graciously endowed the messengers, among the gifts were two expensive chain mail for the ataman. Following the Cossacks, Prince Bolkhovsky was sent with a squad of three hundred soldiers. The Stroganovs were ordered to select forty of the best people and attach them to the squad - this procedure was delayed. The detachment reached Kashlyk in November 1584, the Cossacks did not know in advance about such replenishment, so the necessary provisions were not prepared for the winter.

Conquest of the Voguls

In 1583, Yermak conquered the Tatar villages in the basins of the Ob and Irtysh. The Tatars put up fierce resistance. Along the river Tavda, the Cossacks went to the land of the Vogulichi, extending the power of the king to the river Sosva. In the conquered town of Nazim already in 1584 there was a rebellion in which all the Cossacks of ataman N. Pan were slaughtered. In addition to the unconditional talent of a commander and strategist, Yermak acts as a subtle psychologist who was well versed in people. Despite all the difficulties and difficulties of the campaign, not one of the atamans faltered, did not change his oath, until his last breath he was a faithful companion and friend of Yermak.

Chronicles have not preserved the details of this battle. But, given the conditions and method of war used by the Siberian peoples, apparently, the Voguls built a fortification, which the Cossacks were forced to storm. From the Remezov Chronicle it is known that after this battle, Yermak had 1060 people left. It turns out that the losses of the Cossacks amounted to about 600 people.

Takmak and Yermak in winter

Hungry winter

The winter period 1584-1585 turned out to be extremely cold, the frost was about minus 47 ° C, winds were constantly blowing from the north. It was impossible to hunt in the forest because of the deepest snow, wolves circled in huge flocks near human dwellings. All the archers of Bolkhovsky, the first governor of Siberia from the famous princely family, died of starvation along with him. They did not have time to participate in battles with the Khan. The number of Cossacks of Ataman Ermak also greatly decreased. During this period, Yermak tried not to meet with the Tatars - he took care of the weakened fighters.

Trek Mysteries: Who needs land? Until now, none of the Russian historians has given a clear answer to a simple question: why Yermak began this campaign to the east, to the Siberian Khanate.

The uprising of Murza Karach

In the spring of 1585, one of the leaders who submitted to Yermak on the Tura River suddenly attacked the Cossacks I. Koltso and Y. Mikhailov. Almost all the Cossacks died, and the rebels blocked the Russian army in their former capital. 06/12/1585 Meshcheryak and his comrades made a bold sortie and threw back the army of the Tatars, but the Russian losses were enormous. At Yermak, at that moment, only 50% of those who went on a campaign with him survived. Of the five atamans, only two were alive - Yermak and Meshcheryak.

The death of Yermak and the end of the campaign

On the night of 08/03/1585, Ataman Ermak died with fifty fighters on the Vagae River. The Tatars attacked the sleeping camp, in this skirmish only a few soldiers survived, who brought terrible news to Qashlyk. Witnesses to Yermak's death claim that he was wounded in the neck, but continued to fight.

During the battle, the ataman had to jump from one boat to another, but he was bleeding, and the royal chain mail was heavy - Yermak did not jump. It was impossible even for such a strong man to swim out in heavy armor - the wounded drowned. The legend says that a local fisherman found the corpse and delivered it to the khan. For a month, the Tatars shot arrows into the body of the defeated enemy, during which time no signs of decomposition were noticed. The surprised Tatars buried Yermak in a place of honor (in modern times it is the village of Baishevo), but outside the cemetery fence, he was not a Muslim.

After receiving the news of the death of the leader, the Cossacks gathered for a meeting, where it was decided to return to their native lands - wintering again in these places was like death. On August 15, 1585, under the leadership of Ataman M. Meshcheryak, the remnants of the detachment moved in an organized manner along the Ob to the west, home. The Tatars were celebrating the victory, they did not yet know that the Russians would return in a year.

Campaign results

The expedition of Ermak Timofeevich established Russian power for two years. As often happened with the pioneers, they paid with their lives for the conquest of new lands. The forces were unequal - several hundred pioneers against tens of thousands of opponents. But everything did not end with the death of Yermak and his soldiers - other conquerors followed, and soon all of Siberia was a vassal of Moscow.

The conquest of Siberia often took place with "little bloodshed", and the personality of Ataman Yermak was overgrown with numerous legends. The people composed songs about the brave hero, historians and writers wrote books, artists drew pictures, and directors made films. Yermak's military strategies and tactics were adopted by other commanders. The formation of the army, invented by the brave ataman, was used hundreds of years later by another great commander - Alexander Suvorov.

His perseverance in advancing through the territory of the Siberian Khanate is very, very reminiscent of the perseverance of the doomed. Yermak simply walked along the rivers of an unfamiliar land, counting on chance and military luck. Logically, the Cossacks had to lay down their heads in the campaign. But Ermak was lucky, he captured the capital of the Khanate and went down in history as a winner.

The conquest of Siberia by Yermak, painting by Surikov

Three hundred years after the events described, the Russian artist Vasily Surikov painted a painting. This is truly a monumental picture of the battle genre. The talented artist managed to convey how great the feat of the Cossacks and their chieftain was. Surikov's painting depicts one of the battles of a small detachment of Cossacks with a huge army of the Khan.

The artist managed to describe everything in such a way that the viewer understands the outcome of the battle, although the battle has just begun. Christian banners with the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands fly over the heads of the Russians. The battle is headed by Yermak himself - he is at the head of his army and at first glance it catches the eye that the Russian commander is of remarkable strength and great courage. Enemies are presented as an almost faceless mass, whose strength is undermined by fear of the alien Cossacks. Ermak Timofeevich is calm and confident, with the eternal gesture of the commander, he directs his soldiers forward.

The air is filled with gunpowder, it seems that shots are heard, flying arrows whistle. In the background, hand-to-hand combat is taking place, and in the central part, the troops raised the icon, turning to higher powers for help. In the distance, the Khan's fortress-stronghold is visible - a little more and the resistance of the Tatars will be broken. The atmosphere of the picture is imbued with a sense of imminent victory - this became possible thanks to the great skill of the artist.

The information that has come down to us about the life of the ancient Russian princes is scattered and incomplete. However, historians know a lot about Prince Igor, and all due to his active foreign policy activities. Prince Igor in the Tale of Bygone Years Igor's Campaigns...

Siberia on the eve of accession

In addition to the Siberian Khanate from Russia to China, there is not a single state formation, which made the accession relatively easy. Most peoples were at various stages of the primitive communal system. The most archaic (Stone Age) were in Chukotka, Sakhalin, Kamchatka. Tungus (Evenks) lived from the Yenisei to the Pacific Ocean, they were engaged in hunting. In the northern tundra - "Samoyeds" (Nenets, etc.), reindeer herders. In the Trans-Urals - "Ostyaks" (Khanty) and "Voguls" (Mansi), already tribal associations headed by "princes". The emergence of elements of a class society was most pronounced among the Yakuts and Buryats. The Yakuts have tribal leaders - toyons.

The history of the annexation of Siberia is extremely long. Long before Yermak, the Novgorod ushkuinists made campaigns for the "Stone" in the "Obdorsk land". The main incentive is fur, as it was in great demand in Europe (for noble people). Therefore, in the forefront were fur miners - "industrialists". According to some reports, by the XVI century. Russian settlements existed at the mouth of the Ob.

Beginning of joining. Yermak's campaign

After the annexation of Kazan, the Siberian Khanate, which arose after the collapse of the Golden Horde, became a direct neighbor of Russia. In the middle of the XVI century. it recognized vassal dependence on Russia, but after Khan Kuchum came to power, there were attacks on Russian settlements in the Urals. In the development of this region, the house of the richest merchants, the Stroganovs, played an important role, to whom Ivan IV gave special privileges, including the right to build fortresses and maintain troops in the Urals.

In 1581, a detachment of Cossacks from the Volga, led by Yermak (numbering 600-800 people), came to the Stroganovs' possessions and began a campaign in Siberia. In 1582 - the assault on the capital of Kuchum Kashlyk. 1584 - the death of Yermak. Continued conquest by state forces. In 1598, the last battle took place with the troops of Kuchum in the area of ​​the current Novosibirsk hydroelectric power station.

A few words about Yermak's personality. He showed himself not only as a talented warrior, but also as a diplomat (a flexible attitude towards the local population), laid the foundation for the tradition of their involvement in the Russian service. Already in the struggle against the Polish interventionists, detachments of serving Tatars from Siberia were created. He became a hero not only of Russian, but also of Tatar folklore. A large number of works of art about him (especially famous - "Duma" by K. Ryleev).

Controversial moments about Yermak. Even in the works about the conquest of Siberia that appeared at that time, there were various versions about the initiative of the campaign. According to the Stroganov chronicle, this was the initiative of the Stroganovs. The Esipov Chronicle claims that this was the Cossacks' own initiative.

There are long disputes about Yermak's personality. The most famous version is that Yermak is the ataman of the Cossacks from the Volga. The motive of his campaign was an attempt to avoid the "royal disgrace" for the previous robberies, to earn forgiveness. Recently, an unusual version has appeared: Yermak is a descendant of the Tatar dynasty that previously ruled in the Siberian Khanate and was overthrown by Kuchum (the fact that Kuchum was a usurper explains the relative ease of conquest, the lack of mass resistance of the local population).

Further annexation of Siberia

At the end of the XVI-beginning of the XVII centuries. explorers firmly settled on the Ob and Irtysh. At this time, the cities of Tyumen, Tobolsk (at that time the capital of Russian Siberia), Tomsk, Kuznetsk, Mangazeya (the first Siberian polar city), and others were founded. Already in the 20s. 17th century - appeared on the Yenisei, the cities of Yeniseisk and Krasnoyarsk were founded. Further - movement to Eastern Siberia. The main route is along the rivers with a system of portages. They built small fortresses - "guards". In 1632 Yakutsk was built, in 1652 - Irkutsk. Then they moved to the Northeast and to the Amur.

In 1648, Semyon Dezhnev's detachment on his "koch" reached the extreme tip of Eurasia (Cape Dezhnev), moved along the Arctic Ocean, sailed through the strait between the two continents.

In the middle of the XVII century. development of the Amur region. The first expedition to the mouth of the Amur was made by Vasily Poyarkov. The appearance of Russian settlements on the Amur after the expedition of Erofei Khabarov. However, then - the invasion of the Chinese-Manchurian troops, the siege of our fortress Albazin. The forces are unequal, therefore, in 1689, the Nerchinsk Treaty was concluded (the first treaty between Russia and China), according to which the territory of the Albazinsky Voivodeship was transferred to China, but the border line was extremely uncertain under the treaty.

This treaty was canceled by the Aigun and Beijing treaties in the second half of the 19th century. Until recently, these events were the subject of acute controversy: China considered the Nerchinsk Treaty the basis for claims to Primorye and the Amur Region, and regarded subsequent treaties as unfair, imposed by force.

At the end of the XVII century. Kamchatka was annexed, Sakhalin and the Kuriles were discovered. Of the large territories, Chukotka remained, which was conquered already in the 18th century. (Chukchi turned out to be the most warlike).

Thus, a unique accomplishment, a feat of Russian explorers, took place: in one century they traveled from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean.

It was part of the world process - the Great geographical discoveries. I had to overcome enormous difficulties, hunger, cold (this is very clearly described in the "Life" of Archpriest Avvakum).

Siberia as part of the Russian state

Formation of the Russian population. Usually, three colonization waves are distinguished: "avant-garde": Cossacks and industrialists, who "brought local peoples under the sovereign's hand", governors with sovereign military people who built cities and prisons, and peasants who left here from serfdom in search of a better life. At first, the government provided assistance to the settlers and did not persecute the fugitives. Subsequently, greater control, however, it is very important that serfdom did not spread in Siberia. Successes in the agricultural development of Siberia, at first, a special tax in kind, "Siberian bread", was collected in European Russia to feed the Russians in Siberia. Already at the end of the XVII century. it was canceled because they began to grow enough of it here.

Thus, the successful annexation and development of Siberia was achieved as a result of the combination of the people's initiative and the efforts of the state.

The accession of new lands to Russia, the position of indigenous peoples are complex, debatable historical problems. After 1917, the "Pokrovsky school": it was believed that there was only conquest and colonial exploitation. Under Stalin, only positive consequences were discussed. Instead of the terms "subjugation", "conquest", "attachment", "voluntary entry" began to be used. Recently, they often again talk about the "Russian colonial empire", some authors primarily talk about negative aspects (for example, Yermak is a bloody conqueror, etc.).

The reality was contradictory. In the 17th century the main direction of exploitation was the collection of fur tax - yasak. Siberian furs provided 1/4 of state revenues. There are many shady sides: the excessive size of the yasak, the taking of hostages, punitive campaigns, forced Christianization. However, it still differed sharply from the colonial practice in America, there is rampant robbery and destruction of the bulk of the local population. Under Russian rule, the number of all Siberian peoples grew. This is connected, first of all, with the nature of exploitation: the land did not have such a value, it did not have to be "liberated" from the local population, the more natives, the more yasak.

The positive consequences of the entry of the peoples of Siberia into Russia: internecine wars were stopped, familiarization with a more advanced economy and culture began, in particular, Russian peasants brought arable farming, for some peoples Russia generally became the only salvation (for example, in the 18th century, after the suppression of the uprising of the Dzungarian Chinese- the Manchurian authorities began their destruction, and they were saved only by flight to Russia - this is how the Kalmyks appeared).

About the beginning of the conquest and development of Siberia by the Russians - see the article " Yermak»

Completion of the struggle against the Tatars for Western Siberia

Founded in 1587 by governor Danila Chulkov, Tobolsk became for the first time the main stronghold of the Russians in Siberia. It was located not far from the former Tatar capital, the city of Siberia. The Tatar prince Seydyak, who was sitting in it, proceeded to Tobolsk. But with shots from squeakers and cannons, the Russians repulsed the Tatars, and then made a sortie and finally defeated them; Seydyak was taken prisoner. In this battle, Matvey Meshcheryak, the last of the four atamans-comrades of Yermak, fell. According to other news, Seydyak was killed in a different way. He allegedly, with one Kirghiz-Kaisak prince and the former chief adviser (karach) of Khan Kuchum, planned to capture Tobolsk by cunning: he came with 500 people and settled down in a meadow near the city, under the pretext of hunting. Guessing about his plan, Chulkov pretended to be his friend and invited him to negotiate peace. Seydyak with the prince, a karachoi and a hundred Tatars. During the feast, the Russian governor announced that the Tatar princes had an evil plan in mind, and ordered them to be seized and sent to Moscow (1588). After that, the city of Siberia was abandoned by the Tatars and deserted.

Having finished with Seydyak, the tsarist governors set about the former Siberian Khan Kuchum, who, having been defeated by Yermak, went to the Baraba steppe and from there continued to disturb the Russians with attacks. He received help from neighboring Nogai, marrying some of his sons and daughters to the children of Nogai princes. Now a part of the murzas of the orphaned Taybugin ulus has joined him. In the summer of 1591, voivode Masalsky went to the Ishim steppe, near Lake Chili-Kula defeated the Kuchumov Tatars and captured his son Abdul-Khair. But Kuchum himself escaped and continued his raids. In 1594, Prince Andrei Yeletsky with a strong detachment moved up the Irtysh and founded the town of the same name near the confluence of the Tara River. He found himself almost in the center of the fertile steppe, along which Kuchum roamed, collecting yasak from the Tatar volosts along the Irtysh, who had already sworn allegiance to the Russians. The city of Tara was of great help in the fight against Kuchum. From here, the Russians repeatedly undertook searches against him in the steppe; ruined his uluses, entered into relations with his murzas, who were lured into our citizenship. The governors sent to him more than once with exhortations so that he would submit to the Russian sovereign. From Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich himself, a letter of exhortation was sent to him. She pointed to his hopeless situation, to the fact that Siberia had been conquered, that Kuchum himself had become a homeless Cossack, but if he came to Moscow with a confession, then cities and volosts would be given him as a reward, even his former city of Siberia. The captive Abdul-Khair also wrote to his father and persuaded him to submit to the Russians, citing as an example himself and his brother Magmetkul, to whom the sovereign granted volosts to feed. Nothing, however, could incline the stubborn old man to obedience. In his answers, he beats the Russian Tsar with his forehead so that he would give him back the Irtysh. He is ready to reconcile, but only with the “truth”. He also adds a naive threat: “I am in alliance with the legs, and if we stand on both sides, then it will be bad for Moscow possession.”

We decided to put an end to Kuchum at all costs. In August 1598, the Russian governor Voeikov set out from Tara to the Baraba steppe with 400 Cossacks and serving Tatars. We learned that Kuchum with 500 of his hordes went to the upper Ob, where he had sown grain. Voeikov walked day and night, and on August 20, at dawn, he suddenly attacked the Kuchum camp. The Tatars, after a fierce battle, succumbed to the superiority of the "fiery battle" and suffered a complete defeat; the hardened Russians killed almost all the prisoners: only some of the Murzas and the Kuchum family were spared; eight of his wives, five sons, several daughters and daughters-in-law with children were captured. Kuchum himself escaped this time too: with several faithful people, he sailed away in a boat down the Ob. Voeikov sent a Tatar seite to him with new exhortations to submit. Seit found him somewhere in a Siberian forest on the banks of the Ob; he had three sons and about thirty Tatars. “If I didn’t go to the Russian sovereign at the best time,” answered Kuchum, “then I’ll go now, when I’m blind and deaf, and a beggar.” There is something inspiring respect in the behavior of this former Khan of Siberia. Its end was pitiful. Wandering in the steppes of the upper Irtysh, a descendant of Genghis Khan stole cattle from neighboring Kalmyks; fleeing their revenge, he fled to his former allies Nogai and was killed there. His family was sent to Moscow, where they arrived already in the reign of Boris Godunov; it had a solemn entry into the Russian capital, for show to the people, was favored by the new sovereign and sent to different cities. In the capital, Voeikov's victory was celebrated with prayer and bell ringing.

Development of Western Siberia by Russians

The Russians continued to secure the Ob region by building new towns. Under Fedor and Boris Godunov, the following fortified settlements appeared: Pelym, Berezov, in the very lower reaches of the Ob - Obdorsk, in its middle course - Surgut, Narym, Ketsky Ostrog and Tomsk; Verkhoturye, the main point on the road from European Russia to Siberia, was built on the upper Tura, and Turinsk was built on the middle course of the same river; on the river Taza, which flows into the eastern branch of the Gulf of Ob, is the Mangazeya prison. All these towns were equipped with wooden and earthen fortifications, cannons and squeakers. The garrisons were usually made up of several dozen servicemen. Following the military people, the Russian government transferred townspeople and plowed peasants to Siberia. The servants were also given land, in which they arranged some kind of economy. In every Siberian town, wooden temples, although small, were necessarily erected.

Western Siberia in the 17th century

Along with the conquest, Moscow cleverly and prudently led the work of the development of Siberia, its Russian colonization. Sending settlers, the Russian government ordered the regional authorities to supply them with a certain amount of livestock, livestock and bread, so that the settlers had everything they needed to immediately start a farm. The artisans necessary for the development of Siberia, especially carpenters, were also sent; coachmen were sent, etc. As a result of various benefits and incentives, as well as rumors about the riches of Siberia, many eager people, especially hunter industrialists, were drawn there. Along with the development, the work of converting the natives to Christianity and their gradual Russification began. Not being able to separate a large military force for Siberia, the Russian government took care to attract the natives themselves to it; many Tatars and Voguls were converted to the Cossack estate, provided with land allotments, salaries and weapons. Whenever necessary, foreigners were obliged to put up auxiliary detachments on horseback and on foot, which were placed under the command of Russian boyar children. The Moscow government ordered to caress and enlist in our service the former sovereign families of Siberia; it sometimes transferred local princelings and murzas to Russia, where they were baptized and joined the ranks of nobles or boyar children. And those princelings and murzas who did not want to submit, the government ordered to be caught and punished, and their towns to be burned. When collecting yasak in Siberia, the Russian government ordered relief be given to the poor and old natives, and in some places, instead of fur yasak, they taxed them with a certain amount of bread in order to accustom them to agriculture, since their own, Siberian, bread was produced too little.

Of course, not all the good orders of the central government were conscientiously carried out by the local Siberian authorities, and the natives endured many insults and harassment. Nevertheless, the cause of the Russian development of Siberia was set up cleverly and successfully, and the greatest merit in this matter belongs to Boris Godunov. Messages in Siberia went in the summer along the rivers, for which many state-owned plows were built. And long-distance communications in winter were supported either by pedestrians on skis or by sledges. To connect Siberia with European Russia by land, a road was laid from Solikamsk across the ridge to Verkhoturye.

Siberia began to reward the Russians who mastered it with their natural wealth, especially a huge amount of furs. Already in the first years of the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich, a yasak was imposed on the occupied region in the amount of 5,000 forty sables, 10,000 black foxes and half a million squirrels.

Colonization of Siberia in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov

Russian colonization of Siberia continued and made significant progress during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, especially after the end of the Time of Troubles. Under this sovereign, the development of Siberia was expressed not so much by the construction of new cities (as under Fyodor Ioannovich and Godunov), but by the establishment of Russian villages and villages in the areas between the Kamenny Belt and the Ob River, what are the counties of Verkhotursky, Turin, Tyumen, Pelymsky, Berezovsky, Tobolsky, Tara and Tomsky. Having fortified the newly conquered region with cities with service people, the Russian government now took care of populating it with peasant farmers in order to Russify this region and supply it with its own bread. In 1632, from the Verkhotursky district closest to European Russia, it was ordered to send to Tomsk a hundred or fifty peasants with their wives, children, and with the entire "arable plant" (agricultural implements). So that their former Verkhoturye arable land would not be left in vain, it was ordered in Perm, Cherdyn and Kamskaya Salt to call hunters from free people who would agree to go to Verkhoturye and land there on the already plowed lands; and they were given loans and assistance. The governors were supposed to send such newly recruited peasants with their families and movable property on carts to Verkhoturye. If there were few hunters for resettlement in Siberia, the government sent settlers "by decree" from their own palace villages, giving them help with livestock, poultry, a plow, a cart.

Siberia at this time also receives an increase in the Russian population from the exiles: it was under Mikhail Fedorovich that it became predominantly a place of exile for criminals. The government tried to rid the indigenous regions of restless people and use them to populate Siberia. It planted exiled peasants and townspeople in Siberia on arable land, and recruited service people for service.

Russian colonization in Siberia was carried out primarily through government measures. Very few free Russian settlers came there; which is natural given the sparsely populated neighboring regions of the Pokamsky and Volga regions, which themselves still needed colonization from the central Russian regions. The living conditions in Siberia were then so difficult that the settlers tried at every opportunity to move back to their native lands.

The clergy were especially reluctant to go to Siberia. Russian settlers and exiles among half-savage infidels indulged in all sorts of vices and neglected the rules of the Christian faith. For the sake of church improvement, Patriarch Filaret Nikitich established a special archiepiscopal see in Tobolsk, and appointed Cyprian, archimandrite of the Novgorod Khutyn Monastery, as the first archbishop of Siberia (1621). Cyprian brought priests with him to Siberia, and set about organizing his diocese. He found there several already founded monasteries, but without observing the rules of monastic life. For example, in Turinsk there was the Intercession Monastery, where monks and nuns lived together. Cyprian founded several more Russian monasteries, which, at his request, were provided with lands. The archbishop found the morals of his flock extremely loose, and in order to establish Christian morality here, he met great opposition from the governors and service people. He sent a detailed report to the tsar and the patriarch about the disturbances he had found. Filaret sent a reproachful letter to Siberia describing these disorders and ordered that it be read publicly in churches.

It depicts the corruption of Siberian customs. Many Russian people there do not wear crosses on themselves, they do not observe fasting days. Literacy especially attacks family debauchery: Orthodox people marry Tatars and pagans or marry close relatives, even sisters and daughters; servants, going to distant places, pledge wives to comrades with the right to use, and if the husband does not redeem the wife at the appointed time, then the lender sells her to other people. Some Siberian service people, coming to Moscow, entice wives and girls with them, and in Siberia they sell them to Lithuanians, Germans and Tatars. Russian governors not only do not stop people from lawlessness, but they themselves set an example of theft; for the sake of self-interest, they inflict violence on merchants and natives.

In the same year, 1622, the tsar sent a letter to the Siberian governors with a ban on them to intervene in spiritual affairs and an order to ensure that service people in these matters obey the court of the archbishop. He also punishes them so that the servants sent to foreigners to collect yasak do not do violence to them, so that the governors themselves do not commit violence and lies. But such orders did little to restrain arbitrariness, and morals improved very slowly in Siberia. And the most spiritual authorities did not always correspond to the high appointment. Cyprian remained in Siberia only until 1624, when he was transferred to Moscow by the Metropolitan of Sarsky or Krutitsky to the place of the retired Jonah, with whom Patriarch Filaret was dissatisfied with his objections to the re-baptism of the Latins at the spiritual council of 1620. than care for the flock.

In Moscow, Siberia, being mastered by the Russians, was in charge of the Kazan and Meshchersky palaces for a long time; but in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, an independent “Siberian Order” (1637) also appeared. In Siberia, the highest regional administration was first concentrated in the hands of the Tobolsk governors; since 1629 the Tomsk governors have become independent from them. The dependence of the governors of small towns on these two main cities was predominantly military.

Beginning of Russian penetration into Eastern Siberia

Yasak from sables and other valuable furs was the main motivation for the expansion of Russian rule in Eastern Siberia beyond the Yenisei. Usually, a party of Cossacks of several dozen people comes out of one or another Russian city, and on fragile “kochs” floats along Siberian rivers in the middle of wild deserts. When the waterway is interrupted, she leaves the boats under the cover of a few people and continues on foot through the barely passable wilds or mountains. Rare, sparsely populated tribes of Siberian aliens are called upon to enter into the citizenship of the Russian tsar and pay him yasak; they either comply with this demand, or refuse tribute and gather in a crowd armed with bows and arrows. But fire from squeakers and self-propelled guns, friendly work with swords and sabers force them to pay yasak. Sometimes, overwhelmed by numbers, a handful of Russians build a cover for themselves and sit out in it until reinforcements arrive. Often industrialists paved the way for military parties in Siberia, looking for sables and other valuable furs, which the natives willingly exchanged for copper or iron cauldrons, knives, beads. It happened that two parties of Cossacks met among foreigners and started feuds that reached the point of a fight over who should take yasak in a given place.

In Western Siberia, the Russian conquest met with stubborn resistance from the Kuchumov Khanate, and then had to fight the hordes of Kalmyks, Kirghiz and Nogays. During the Time of Troubles, the conquered foreigners sometimes made attempts there to rebel against Russian rule, but were pacified. The number of natives greatly decreased, which was facilitated by the newly introduced diseases, especially smallpox.

Yenisei Territory, Baikal and Transbaikalia in the 17th century

The conquest and development of Eastern Siberia, accomplished for the most part in the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, took place with much less obstacles; there, the Russians did not meet an organized enemy and the foundations of state life, but only semi-wild tribes of the Tungus, Buryats, Yakuts with petty princes or foremen at the head. The conquest of these tribes was consolidated by the foundation in Siberia of ever new cities and forts, located most often along the rivers at the junction of water communications. The most important of them: Yeniseisk (1619) in the land of the Tungus and Krasnoyarsk (1622) in the Tatar region; in the land of the Buryats, who showed relatively strong resistance, the Bratsk prison was set up (1631) at the confluence of the river. Okie in the Angara. On the Ilim, the right tributary of the Angara, Ilimsk arose (1630); in 1638, the Yakut prison was built on the middle reaches of the Lena. In 1636-38, the Yenisei Cossacks, led by foreman Elisha Buza, descended along the Lena to the Arctic Sea and reached the mouth of the Yana River; behind it they found the Yukaghir tribe and overlaid them with yasak. Almost at the same time, a party of Tomsk Cossacks, led by Dmitry Kopylov, entered the Aldan from the Lena, then the Maya, a tributary of the Aldan, from where it reached the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, overlaying the Tungus and Lamuts with yasak.

In 1642, the Russian city of Mangazeya suffered a severe fire. After that, its inhabitants gradually moved to the Turukhansk winter hut on the lower Yenisei, which was distinguished by a more convenient position. Old Mangazeya is deserted; instead of it, a new Mangazeya or Turukhansk arose.

Russian exploration of Siberia under Alexei Mikhailovich

The Russian conquest of Eastern Siberia already under Mikhail Fedorovich was brought to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, it was finally approved and extended to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1646, the Yakut governor Vasily Pushkin sent a foreman Semyon Shelkovnik with a detachment of 40 people to the Okhta River, to the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk for "mining new lands." Shelkovnik set up (1649?) a prison of Okhotsk on this river near the sea and began to collect tribute in furs from the neighboring natives; moreover, he took the sons of their foremen or "princes" as hostages (amanats). But, contrary to the royal decree to bring the Siberian natives into citizenship "with kindness and greetings", service people often annoyed them with violence. The natives reluctantly submitted to the Russian yoke. The princes sometimes revolted, beat up small parties of Russian people and approached the Russian prisons. In 1650, the Yakut governor Dmitry Frantsbekov, having received news of the siege of the Okhotsk prison by indignant natives, sent Semyon Yenishev with 30 people to help Shelkovnik. With difficulty, he reached Okhotsk and then withstood several battles with the Tungus, armed with arrows and spears, dressed in iron and bone kuyak. Firearms helped the Russians defeat much more numerous enemies (according to Yenishev's reports, there were up to 1000 or more). Ostrozhek was freed from the siege. Enishev did not find Shelkovnik alive; only 20 of his comrades remained. Later, having received new reinforcements, he went to the surrounding lands, imposed tribute on the tribes and took amanats from them.

The leaders of the Russian parties in Siberia at the same time had to pacify the frequent disobedience of their own service people, who in the far east were distinguished by self-will. Yenishev sent complaints to the governor about the disobedience of his subordinates. Four years later, we find him already in another prison, on the Ulya River, where he went with the rest of the people after the Okhotsk prison was burned by the natives. From Yakutsk, the governor Lodyzhensky sent Andrei Bulygin with a significant detachment in that direction. Bulygin took the Pentecostal Onokhovsky with three dozen service people from Ulya, built the New Okhotsk Ostrog (1665) on the site of the old one, defeated the rebellious Tungus clans and again brought them into citizenship of the Russian sovereign.

Mikhail Stadukhin

Moscow possessions spread further to the north. Cossack foreman Mikhail Stadukhin founded a prison on the Siberian river Kolyma, overlaid with yasak the deer Tunguses and Yukagirs who lived on it, and was the first to bring news of the Chukotka land and the Chukchi, who in winter move on deer to the northern islands, beat walruses there and bring their heads with teeth. Governor Vasily Pushkin in 1647 gave Stadukhin a detachment of servicemen to go across the Kolyma River. Stadukhin, in nine or ten years, made a number of trips on sledges and along the rivers on koches (round ships); imposed tribute on the Tungus, Chukchi and Koryaks. The river Anadyr he went to the Pacific Ocean. All this was done by the Russians with insignificant forces of a few dozen people, in a hard struggle with the harsh nature of Siberia and with constant battles with wild natives.

Eastern Siberia in the 17th century

Simultaneously with Stadukhin, in the same northeastern corner of Siberia, other Russian servicemen and industrial entrepreneurs - "experimenters" also labored. Sometimes parties of service people left for mining without the permission of the authorities. So in 1648 or 1649, a dozen or two servicemen left the Yakut prison from the oppression of the governor Golovin and his successor Pushkin, who, according to them, did not give out the sovereign's salary, and punished those who were dissatisfied with a whip, prison, torture and batogs. These 20 people went to the Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma rivers and collected yasak there, fought the natives and took their fortified winter quarters by storm. Sometimes different parties clashed and started feuds and fights. Stadukhin tried to recruit some squads of these experimentalists into his detachment, and even inflicted insults and violence on them; but they preferred to act on their own.

Semyon Dezhnev

Among these people who did not obey Stadukhin was Semyon Dezhnev and his comrades. In 1648, from the mouth of the Kolyma, sailing up the Anyuy, he made his way to the upper reaches of the Anadyr River, where the Anadyr prison was founded (1649). The following year, he set off from the mouth of the Kolyma on several boats by sea; of them, only one kocha remained, on which he rounded the Chukchi nose. Bureya and this kocha were thrown ashore; after which the party reached the mouth of the Anadyr on foot and went up the river. Of the 25 comrades of Dezhnev, 12 returned. Dezhnev warned Bering for 80 years in the opening of the strait separating Asia from America. Often the Siberian natives refused to pay yasak to the Russians and beat the collectors. Then it was necessary to send military detachments to them again. So Gr. Pushkin, sent by the Yakut governor Boryatinsky, in 1671 pacified the indignant Yukagirs and Lamuts on the river. Indigirka.

Russian advance into Dauria

Along with the yasak collection, Russian industrialists were so zealously engaged in hunting sables and foxes that in 1649 some Tungus foremen attacked the Moscow government for the rapid extermination of the fur-bearing animal. Not content with hunting, the industrialists spent the whole winter catching sables and foxes with traps; why these animals in Siberia began to be heavily bred.

The uprising of the Buryats, who lived along the Angara and the upper Lena, near Baikal, was especially strong. It happened at the beginning of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich.

The Buryats and neighboring Tunguses paid yasak to the Yakut governors; but ataman Vasily Kolesnikov, sent by the Yenisei governor, began to collect tribute from them again. Then the united crowds of Buryats and Tungus, armed with bows, spears and sabers, in kuyaks and shishaks, horsemen began to attack the Russians and come to the Verkholensky prison. This uprising was pacified not without difficulty. Aleksey Bedarev and Vasily Bugor, sent to help this prison from Yakutsk, with a detachment of 130 people, on the way withstood three “launches” (attacks) of 500 Buryats. At the same time, the serviceman Afanasyev grabbed a Buryat rider-hero, the brother of Prince Mogunchak, and killed him. Having received reinforcements in the prison, the Russians again went to the Buryats, smashed their uluses and again withstood the battle, which they ended in complete victory.

Of the Russian fortifications built in that part of Siberia, the Irkutsk prison (1661) on the Angara then especially advanced. And in Transbaikalia, Nerchinsk (1653-1654) and Selenginsk (1666) on the river became our main strongholds. Selenge.

Moving to the east of Siberia, the Russians entered Dauria. Here, instead of the northeastern tundra and mountains, they found more fertile lands with a less severe climate, instead of rare wandering shamanistic savages - more frequent uluses of nomadic or semi-settled "Mugal" tribes, semi-dependent on China, influenced by its culture and religion, rich in cattle and bread, familiar with ores. The Daurian and Manchurian princes had silver gilded idols (burkhans), fortified towns. Their princes and khans obeyed the Manchurian Bogdykhan and had fortresses surrounded by an earthen rampart and sometimes equipped with cannons. Russians in this part of Siberia could no longer operate in parties of a dozen or two; hundreds and even thousands of detachments were needed, armed with squeakers and cannons.

Vasily Poyarkov

The first Russian campaign in Dauria was undertaken at the end of the reign of Michael.

The Yakut governor Golovin, having news of the peoples who were sitting on the Shilka and Zeya rivers and abounding in bread and all kinds of ore, in the summer of 1643 sent a party of 130 people, under the command of Vasily Poyarkov, to the Zeya River. Poyarkov swam down the Lena, then up its tributary, the Aldan, then along the river Uchura, which flows into it. Swimming was very difficult due to the frequent rapids, large and small (the latter were called "shivers"). When he reached the portage, frosts came; had to arrange a winter hut. In the spring, Poyarkov went down to Zeya and soon entered the uluses of arable Daurs. Their princes lived in towns. Poyarkov began to grab amanats from them. From them he learned the names of the princes who lived along the Shilka and the Amur, and the number of their people. The strongest prince on Shilka was Lavkay. The Daurian princes paid yasak to some khan who lived far to the south, in the land of Bogdoi (apparently, in southern Manchuria), who had a log city with an earthen rampart; and his battle was not only archery, but also rifle and cannon. The Daurian princes bought silver, copper, tin, damask and kumachi from the Khan for sable, which he received from China. Poyarkov descended into the middle reaches of the Amur and swam down the land of the Duchers, who beat a lot of his people; then, by the lower course, it reached the sea in the land of the Gilyaks, who did not pay tribute to anyone. The Russians first reached the mouth of the Amur, where they wintered. From here, Poyarkov sailed through the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the mouth of the Ulya River, where he wintered again; and in the spring he reached Aldan by portage and Lenoy returned to Yakutsk in 1646, after a three-year absence. It was a reconnaissance campaign that introduced the Russians to the Amur and Dauria (Pegoy Horde). It cannot be called successful: most of the people died in battles with the natives and from deprivation. They suffered severe hunger during the winter near Zeya: there some were forced to eat the dead bodies of the natives. Upon their return to Yakutsk, they filed a complaint with the governor Pushkin about the cruelty and greed of Poyarkov: they accused him of beating them, not giving them grain supplies and driving them out of the prison into the field. Poyarkov was summoned to court in Moscow, along with the former governor Golovin, who had indulged him.

Rumors about the riches of Dauria aroused a desire to bring this part of Siberia under the rule of the Russian Tsar and collect there an abundant tribute not only in “soft junk”, but also in silver, gold, semi-precious stones. According to some reports, Poyarkov, before he was called to Moscow, was sent on a new campaign in that direction, and after him Enalei Bakhteyarov was sent. Looking for a closer route, they walked from the Lena along the Vitim, whose peaks approach the left tributaries of the Shilka. But they did not find the way and returned without success.

Erofey Khabarov

In 1649, the Yakut governor Frantsbekov was petitioned by the "old experimenter" Yerofei Khabarov, a merchant from Ustyug. He volunteered at his own expense to “clean up” up to one and a half hundred or more willing people in order to bring Dauria under the royal hand and take yasak from them. This experienced man announced that the "direct" road to Shilka and Amur goes along the Olekma, a tributary of the Lena, and the Tugir, which flows into it, from which the portage leads to Shilka. Having received permission and assistance with weapons, having built boards, Khabarov with a detachment of 70 people in the summer of the same 1649 sailed from Lena to Olekma and Tugir. Winter has come. Khabarov moved further on the sled; through the Shilka and Amur valleys they came to the possessions of Prince Lavkai. But his city and the surrounding uluses were empty. The Russians marveled at this Siberian city, fortified with five towers and deep ditches; stone sheds were found in the city, which could accommodate up to sixty people. If fear had not attacked the inhabitants, then it would have been impossible to take their fortress with such a small detachment. Khabarov went down the Amur and found several more similar fortified cities, which were also abandoned by the inhabitants. It turned out that the Russian man Ivashka Kvashnin and his comrades managed to visit the Tungus Lavkaya; he said that the Russians were marching in the number of 500 people, and even larger forces followed them, that they wanted to beat all the Daurs, rob their property, and take their wives and children in full. The frightened Tungus gave Ivashka gifts of sables. Hearing of the impending invasion, Lavkai and other Daurian foremen abandoned their towns; with all the people and herds, they fled to the neighboring steppes under the auspices of the Manchu ruler Shamshakan. Of their abandoned winter quarters, Khabarov especially liked the town of Prince Albaza with a strong position on the middle reaches of the Amur. He occupied Albazin. Leaving 50 people for the garrison, Khabarov went back, built a prison on the Tugir portage, and in the summer of 1650 returned to Yakutsk. In order to secure Dauria for the great sovereign, Frantsbekov sent the same Khabarov in the next 1651 with a detachment much larger and with several guns.

Yakutia and the Amur Region in the 17th century

The Daurs were already approaching Albazin, but he held out until Khabarov arrived. This time, the Daurian princes put up quite a strong resistance to the Russians; a series of battles followed, ending in the defeat of the Daur; the guns were especially frightening to them. The natives again left their towns and fled down the Amur. Local princes submitted and pledged to pay yasak. Khabarov further fortified Albazin, which became a Russian stronghold on the Amur. He founded several more prisons along Shilka and Amur. Voivode Frantsbekov sent him several more human parties. News of the riches of the Daurian land attracted many Cossacks and industrialists. Gathering a significant force, Khabarov in the summer of 1652 moved from Albazin down the Amur, and smashed the coastal uluses. He swam to the confluence of the Shingal (Sungari) into the Amur, in the land of the duchers. Here he wintered in one city.

Local Siberian princes, tributaries of the Bogdykhan, sent requests to China for help against the Russians. About that time in China, the native Ming dynasty was overthrown by rebellious warlords, with whom the Manchu hordes joined. The Manchu dynasty Qing (1644) settled in Beijing in the person of Bogdy Khan Huang-di, but not all Chinese regions recognized him as sovereign; he had to conquer them and gradually consolidate his dynasty. In this era, Khabarov's campaigns and the Russian invasion of Dauria took place; their success was facilitated by the then vague state of the empire and the diversion of its military forces from Siberia to the southern and coastal provinces. News from the Amur forced the Bogdykhan governor in Manchuria (Uchurva) to detach a significant army, horse and foot, with firearms, in the amount of thirty squeakers, six cannons and twelve clay pinards, which had a pood of gunpowder inside and were thrown under the walls for an explosion. Firearms appeared in China, thanks to European merchants and missionaries; for the sake of missionary purposes, the Jesuits tried to be useful to the Chinese government and poured cannons for it.

On March 24, 1653, Russian Cossacks in the city of Achan, at dawn, were awakened by firing from cannons - that was the Bogdoy army, which, with crowds of duchers, went on the attack. “Yaz Yarofeiko ...,” says Khabarov, “and the Cossacks, having prayed to the Savior and the Most Pure Lady of our Mother of God, said goodbye among themselves and said: we will die, brothers, for the faith baptized and we will give joy to the sovereign Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but we will not give ourselves up into the hands of the Bogdoy people” . They fought from dawn to sunset. The Manchu-Chinese cut down three links from the city wall, but the Cossacks rolled a copper cannon here and began to hit the attackers point-blank, directed the fire of other cannons and squeakers at it, and killed a lot of people. The enemies retreated in disarray. The Russians took advantage of this: 50 people remained in the city, and 156, in iron kuyak, with sabers, made a sortie and entered into hand-to-hand combat. The Russians overcame, the Bogdoy army fled from the city. The trophies were a convoy of 830 horses with grain reserves, 17 quick-firing squeakers, which had three or four barrels, and two guns. The enemies lay down about 700 people; while the Russian Cossacks lost only ten killed and about 80 wounded, but the latter later recovered. This battle reminded the former heroic deeds in Siberia of Yermak and his comrades.

But the circumstances here were different.

The conquest of Dauria involved us in a clash with the then mighty Manchurian Empire. Suffered defeat aroused a thirst for revenge; there were rumors about new crowds that were going to hit the Cossacks again in Siberia and crush them in numbers. The princes refused to pay yasak to the Russians. Khabarov did not go further down the Amur to the land of the Gilyaks, but at the end of April he sat on boards and swam up. On the way, he met reinforcements from Yakutsk; he now had about 350 men. In addition to the danger from China, they also had to deal with the disobedience of their own squads, recruited from walking people. 136 people, outraged by Stenka Polyakov and Kostka Ivanov, separated from Khabarovsk and sailed down the Amur for the sake of "zipuns", i.e. began to rob the natives, which further drove them away from the Russians. On instructions from Yakutsk, Khabarov was supposed to send several people as envoys with a royal letter to the Bogdykhan. But the Siberian natives refused to take them to China, referring to the treachery of the Russians, who promised them peace, and now they are robbing and killing. Khabarov asked to send a large army, because with such small forces, Amur could not be held. He pointed to the abundance of the Chinese land and the fact that it has a fiery battle.

Russians on the Amur

The following year, in 1654, the nobleman Zinoviev arrived on the Amur with reinforcements, a royal salary and a gold award. Taking the yasak, he returned to Moscow, taking Khabarov with him. He received from the king the title of son of a boyar and was appointed clerk of the Ust-Kutsk prison on the Lena. On the Amur, after him, Onufry Stepanov commanded. In Moscow, they intended to send a 3,000th army to this part of Siberia. But the war with the Poles for Little Russia began, and the shipment did not take place. With a small Russian force, Stepanov made campaigns along the Amur, collected tribute from the Daurs and Duchers, and courageously fought off the incoming Manchurian troops. He had to endure especially strong battles in March 1655 in the new Komarsky prison (lower than Albazin). The Bogdoy army was advancing there with cannons and squeakers. His number, together with the hordes of rebellious natives, reached 10,000; they were led by Prince Togudai. Not limited to firing from cannons, the enemies threw arrows with “fiery charges” into the prison and brought carts loaded with tar and straw to the prison to set fire to the palisade. The siege of the prison continued for three weeks, accompanied by frequent attacks. The Russians bravely defended themselves and made successful sorties. The prison was well fortified with a high rampart, wooden walls and a wide moat, around which there was another palisade with hidden iron bars. During the attack, the enemies stumbled upon the bars and could not come close to the walls to light them; and at this time they were hitting them with cannons. Having lost many people, the Bogdoy army retreated. A lot of its fiery charges, gunpowder and cores were left as booty for the Russians. Stepanov asked the Yakut governor Lodyzhensky to send gunpowder, lead, reinforcements and bread. But his requests were little fulfilled; and the war with the Manchus continued; daurs, duchers and gilyaks refused yasak, rebelled, and beat up small parties of Russians. Stepanov pacified them. The Russians usually tried to capture any of the noble or primary Siberian people as amanats.

In the summer of 1658, Stepanov, having set out from Albazin on 12 boards with a detachment of about 500 people, sailed along the Amur and collected yasak. Below the mouth of the Shingal (Sungari), he unexpectedly met a strong Bogdoy army - a flotilla of almost 50 ships, with many cannons and squeakers. This artillery gave the enemy the upper hand and caused great havoc among the Russians. Stepanov fell with 270 comrades; the remaining 227 fled on ships or into the mountains. Part of the Bogdoy army moved up the Amur to the Russian settlements. Our dominion in the middle and lower Amur has almost been lost; Albazin was abandoned. But on the upper Amur and Shilka, it survived thanks to strong spears. At that time, the Yenisei governor Afanasy Pashkov acted there, who, by founding Nerchinsk (1654), strengthened Russian rule here. In 1662 Pashkov was replaced in Nerchinsk by Hilarion Tolbuzin.

Soon the Russians again established themselves on the middle Amur.

The Ilim governor Obukhov was notable for his greed and violence against the women of his county. He dishonored the sister of the service man Nicephorus of Chernigov, originally from Western Rus'. Burning with vengeance, Nicephorus rebelled several dozen people; they attacked Obukhov near the Kirensky prison on the river. Lena and killed him (1665). Avoiding the death penalty, Chernigov and his accomplices went to the Amur, occupied the deserted Albazin, resumed its fortifications and began to collect yasak again from the neighboring Siberian Tunguses, which found themselves between two fires: yasak was demanded of them by both the Russians and the Chinese. In view of the constant danger from the Chinese, Chernigov recognized his subordination to the Nerchinsk governor and asked for pardon in Moscow. Thanks to his merits, he received it and was approved by the Albazin chief. Along with the new Russian occupation of the middle Amur, enmity with the Chinese resumed. It was complicated by the fact that the Tungus prince Gantimur-Ulan, due to Chinese injustices, left the Bogdoy land for Siberia, to Nerchinsk, under Tolbuzin and surrendered with his entire ulus under the royal hand. There were other cases when native clans, unable to endure the oppression of the Chinese, asked for Russian citizenship. The Chinese government was preparing for war. Meanwhile, there were very few Russian servicemen in this part of Siberia. Usually archers and Cossacks from Tobolsk and Yeniseisk were sent here, and they served from 3 to 4 years (with passage). Who among them would like to serve in Dauria for more than 4 years, the salary was increased. Tolbuzin's successor, Arshinsky, reported to the Tobolsk voivode Godunov that in 1669 a horde of mongals came to yasak Buryats and took them to their uluses; despite the fact that the neighboring Tungus refuse to pay yasak; and “there is no one to start a search”: in the three Nerchinsk prisons (actually Nerchinsk, Irgensk and Telenbinsky) there are only 124 service people.

Russian embassies in China: Fedor Baikov, Ivan Perfiliev, Milovanov

The Russian government therefore tried to settle the dispute over Siberia with the Chinese through negotiations and embassies. To enter into direct relations with China, already in 1654 was sent to Kambalyk (Beijing) Tobolsk boyar son Fyodor Baikov. First, he sailed up the Irtysh, and then traveled through the lands of the Kalmyks, through the Mongolian steppes, and finally reached Beijing. But after unsuccessful negotiations with Chinese officials, he, having achieved nothing, returned back by the same route, having spent more than three years on the journey. But at least he delivered to the Russian government important information about China and the caravan route to it. In 1659, Ivan Perfilyev traveled to China by the same route with a royal charter. He received a Bogdykhan reception, received gifts and brought the first batch of tea to Moscow. When enmity arose with the Chinese over the Tungus prince Gantimur and the Albazin actions of Nikifor of Chernigov, the son of the boyar Milovanov was sent to Beijing by order from Moscow from Nerchinsk (1670). He swam up the Argun; reached the Chinese wall through the Manchurian steppes, arrived in Beijing, was honorably received by the Bogdykhan and gifted with kumachs and silk belts. Milovanov was released not only with a letter of reply to the tsar, but also accompanied by a Chinese official (Mugotei) with a significant retinue. At the request of the latter, the Nerchinsk governor sent Nikifor of Chernigov an order not to fight daur and ducher without the decree of the great sovereign. Such a soft attitude of the Chinese government towards the Russians in Siberia, apparently, was due to the unrest still going on in China. The second god of the Manchurian dynasty, the famous Kang-si (1662-1723) was still young, and he had to fight a lot with rebellions to consolidate his dynasty and the integrity of the Chinese Empire.

In the 1670s, the famous journey to China of the Russian ambassador Nikolai Spafariy took place.

When writing the article, the book by D. I. Ilovaisky “History of Russia. In 5 volumes"

The following details are interesting. In 1647, Shelkovnik from the Okhotsk prison sent an industrial man Fedulka Abakumov to Yakutsk with a request to send reinforcements. When Abakumov and his comrades camped on the top of the May River, they were approached by the Tungus with Prince Kovyrey, whose two sons were atamans in Russian prisons. Not understanding their language, Abakumov thought that Kovyrya wanted to kill him; fired from the squeaker and put the prince in place. Annoyed by this, the children and relatives of the latter were indignant, attacked the Russians, who were engaged in sable hunting on the river. Mae, and killed eleven people. And the son of Kovyri Turchenei, who was sitting as an ataman in the Yakut prison, demanded that the Russian governor hand over Fedulka Abakumov to their relatives for execution. Voivode Pushkin and his comrades tortured him and, having put him in prison, informed the tsar about this and asked what he should do. A letter was obtained from the tsar, in which it was confirmed that the Siberian natives were brought under the tsar's high hand with caress and greetings. Fedulka was ordered, having punished mercilessly with a whip in the presence of Turchenei, put him in prison, and refuse to extradite him, citing the fact that he killed Kovyrya by mistake and that the Tungus had already taken revenge by killing 11 Russian industrialists.

About the campaigns of M. Stadukhin and other experimenters in the north-east of Siberia - see Supplementary. How. East III. Nos. 4, 24, 56 and 57. IV. No. 2, 4–7, 47. In No. 7, Dezhnev’s reply to the Yakut governor about a campaign on the river. Anadyr. Slovtsev "Historical Review of Siberia". 1838. I. 103. He objects to Dezhnev sailing in the Bering Strait. But Krizhanich in his Historia de Siberia positively says that under Alexei Mikhailovich they were convinced of the connection of the Arctic Sea with the Eastern Ocean. On Pushchin's campaign against the Yukaghirs and Lamuts Akty Istor. IV. No. 219. You. Kolesnikov - to the Angara and Baikal. Additional How. East III. No. 15. On the campaigns of Poyarkov and others in Transbaikalia and the Amur. Ibid. Nos. 12, 26, 37, 93, 112, and FROM. In No. 97 (p. 349), servicemen who went with Stadukhin across the Kolyma River say: "And there is a lot of overseas bone lying here on the shore, it is possible to load many courts with that bone." Campaigns of Khabarov and Stepanov: Acts of History. IV. No. 31. Add. How. East III. Nos. 72, 99, 100 - 103, 122. IV. Nos. 8, 12, 31, 53, 64 and 66 (about the death of Stepanov, about Pashkov), (about Tolbuzin). V. No. 5 (an unsubscribe from the Yenisei governor Golokhvostov to the Nerchinsk governor Tolbuzin about sending him 60 archers and Cossacks in 1665. There are mentions of prisons in Dauria: Nerchinsky, Irgensky and Telenbinsky), 8 and 38 (about the construction of the Selenginsk prison in 1665 - 6 years. and examined it in 1667). Regarding the Siberian events or their sequence in the acts, there is some inconsistency. So, according to one piece of news, Yerofey Khabarov had a fight with the Daurs on his first campaign and at the same time occupied Albazin (1650), where he left 50 people, who "all lived until his Yarofey's health", i.e. before his return. (Ac. History IV. No. 31). And according to another act (Suppl. III. No. 72), during this campaign he found all the uluses of the desert; nothing is said about the occupation of Albazin. In No. 22 (Suppl. VI) Albazin is called the "Shopping prison". In the journey of Spafariy, the Albazinsky prison is called the "Shopping Town". In an extensive order of 1651 from the Siberian order sent to the Russian governor of the Daurian land, Afanasy Pashkov, Albazin is mentioned among the Lavable uluses. Pashkov, among other things, is ordered to send people to the river. Shingal to the kings of Bogdoi Andrikan and Nikon (Japanese?) to persuade them to "look for his great sovereign of mercy and salary." (Rus. Historical Bibl. T. XV). About Baikov's travel to China Acts Ist. IV. No. 75. Sakharov "The Tale of the Russian People". P. and Spassky "Siberian Herald" 1820. Krizhanich mentions the dishonor of Chernigov's sister and his revenge in his "History of Siberia" (the aforementioned Collection of A. A. Titova. 213). In general, about greed, the rape of women in Siberia and the murder of Obukhov by Chernigov and his comrades for that, in Supplementary. VIII. No.73.

The same example of a bribe-taker and fornicator-rapist is presented by the Nerchinsk clerk Pavel Shulgin at the end of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The Russian service people of the Nerchinsk prisons filed a complaint against him with the tsar in his following acts. Firstly, the property of service people, left after the dead or killed at the yasak collection, he appropriates for himself. Secondly, he took bribes from some Buryat princes and released their amanats, after which they went to Mongolia, driving away the state and Cossack herds; and to other Buryat clans, it was Abakhai Shulengi and Turaki, who sent the Tungus to drive away the herds from them. “Yes, he has Abakhai Shulengi in Nerchinskoye, a son in amanats and with his wife Gulankay, and he is Pavel that Amanat wife, and his daughter-in-law, by his violence, takes his daughter-in-law to his bed for a long time, and in the bathhouse he takes a steam bath with her, and that Hamanat wife informed your sovereign envoy Nikolai Spafaria in that Pavlovian fornication violence and showed people in every rank all over the world. For this reason, Abakhai with all his family drove away from the prison and drove away the sovereign and the Cossack herds. Further, Pavel Shulgin was accused of smoking wine and brewing beer for sale from state-owned grain reserves, which made bread very expensive in Nerchinsk and service people suffer hunger. Shulgin's people "kept the grain", i.e. prohibited gambling. Not content with his Amanat wife, he also "brought three Cossack yasirs (captives)" to a moving hut, and from here he took them to his place for the night, "and after himself he gave those yasirs to his people for desecration." He “beats servicemen with a whip, and with batogs innocently; taking five or six batogs in his hand, he orders to beat the naked on the back, on the belly, on the sides and on the steg, etc. The Russian servicemen of the Siberian Nerchinsk themselves set aside this terrible man from the authorities, and in his place they chose the son of the boyar Lonshakov and the Cossack foreman Astrakhantsev to the sovereign's place, and they beat the sovereign with their foreheads to confirm their choice. (Supplement to Ac. of his displacement in 1675, part of the yasak Tunguses, taken away by the Mongols from Siberia, then returned to Dauria into Russian citizenship (Acts of History IV. No. 25).In the same 1675, we see examples of the fact that the Daurs themselves, due to Chinese oppression, In order to defend them from the Chinese, the Albazin clerk Mikhail Chernigovsky (successor and relative of Nikifor?), with 300 service people, arbitrarily undertook a campaign or "repaired a search" over the Chinese people on the Gan River (Additional. VI. P. 133).